Mildred Horn

Mildred Horn was a film critic and screenwriter, best known for her work on the Kroger Babb exploitation film Mom and Dad.

Horn was born in Erie, Pennsylvania and studied at Academy High School.^[1] She later moved to Indianapolis, Indiana, where she became a film critic for a local paper.

When Horn was sent to review Kroger Babb's production of Child Bride, she was horrified that such a "cheap, crude, mislabeled morality play would be shown in a major Indiana family theater". In Horn's opinion the film was material for a shoddy sideshow tent at some backwoods county fair.^[2] Babb later met with Horn, instead of writing a scathing review, Horn and Babb entered into a personal and professional relationship that would last forty years until his death in 1983. They enjoyed a common-law marriage after 1944, only making it official when Babb's first wife Toby consented to a divorce in the late 60s.^[2]

Together with Babb and Jack Jossey they formed "Hygienic Productions" (later renamed "Hallmark Productions"),^[3] and she wrote the screenplay for their best known production, Mom and Dad. The film was presented in a unique way, and included lectures and the sale of hygiene books that Horn wrote.^[4]

Horn also wrote the screenplays for Why Men Leave Home, a film about female beauty, and Prince of Peace, a passion play. and now resides in Palm Springs.

Selected works

Films

• Mom and Dad, screenplay (1945)
• The Prince of Peace aka The Lawton Story, screenplay (1949)
• Why Men Leave Home aka Secrets of Beauty, screenplay (1951)

Books

• Man and Boy (1944)
• Woman and Girl (1944)

References