Mom and Dad (1945)

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

If you like to be scared, if you like to laugh, and if you like to learn a thing or two at the movies, this absolutely cannot be missed.

True to its essence, the characters remain on the same line and manage to entertain the viewer, each highlighting their own distinctive qualities or touches.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

I saw this as a kid in a movie theater on Springfield Avenue in Irvington, New Jersey, too young at the time to realize that genitalia had more than decorative value.I can't recall a line or a single scene from the movie except I recall the overall impression it left was one of boredom.The film was boring, not the audience. The audience, mostly young men, were riotous, laughing and shouting, making rude comments about the goings on. I was surprised to see several helium-filled condoms float to the ceiling. I thought they were balloons.If you have a chance, by all means see this. It will cure you of your perversions, help you stop smoking, and take away the pain from that upper-right-quadrant that's been bothering you.

I haven't seen this film yet myself, but I'm going to look for it! I've been poring over old newspaper ads and found "Mom and Dad" very intriguing, as listed for a 1960 screening at the State Theatre in Petaluma, California. "See the Birth of Triplets", "SEE LIFE BEGIN!" and "You SEE the BIRTH of a BABY" certainly raise expectations of an obstetric spectacle. And the segregated audiences: "Women and High School Age Girls 7:00 p.m., Men and High School Aged Boys 9:00 p.m."Sounds educational, even clinical. Reminds me of when all the 10-year-old girls at our school got hustled off to the auditorium to watch an already-hilariously-antiquated but quite informative 16mm about Growing Up. Until I read other comments on this production, I found it odd that the ad also featured a photo of a bosomy blonde with a smoldering gaze, and the question (or title) "How Bad Can a Good Girl Get?". It appears that the audience is assured of not only sex education but some real titillation as well-- possibly, anyway.As if that wasn't enough for the price of admission, there's "Extra, Elliot Forbes in person", at which things really start to get unreal. Are we talking about the prominent conductor and musicologist Elliot Forbes? HUH? Well, maybe he was strongly in favor of sex ed and got roped into appearing with this program. At this point anything is possible. Have to check other screenings of this curious relic...

Using carnival-like methods of promotion, combined with word-of-mouth advertising, this movie exploited sex hygiene et cetera with incredible success. When I was 16 (a long time ago) this movie was in re-issue and a group of us drive 50 miles each way to the drive-in theater playing it exclusively. On a work night, suburban Washington DC's biggest drive-in was sold out. It was a "roadshow" one-theater attraction and they came with a carnival-like crew because at some point the film was stopped and they hawked sexual hygiene books to the audience. There was a rumor I'd heard many times over many years that the film contained an actual scene of sexual intercourse (untrue, but worth talking up.) The movie itself was pretty good, and the entire experience, including the carnival-hustle, made an unforgettable experience.

Mom and Dad is far the most successful exploitation/sex-hygiene film ever made, and not because of it's subject matter or it's production value. The main reason this little $65.000 film made over 22 million dollars in just under 11 years was because of Howard W. "Kroger" Babb, his carny like showmanship and unwavering promotion would always get 'em in the door, or as he would say "you gotta tell 'em to sell 'em". Shot by William "One Shot" Beaudine on a old Monogram lot in Hollywood over the course of a week, This film would go on to make Kroger Babbs tons of money.The story is a simple one that would be copied by many others afterwards to capitalize on it's popularity. It's a story about a high school student who gets pregnant by a airplane pilot, he dies in a plane crash. Knowing she's in trouble and about to give birth, she confides in her high school teacher, but the teacher rats her out to her parents, and her parents get the teacher fired because she answered sex hygiene question in class?!?!. So, mother and daughter run away to another town to have the kid, the teacher gets re-hired and starts a class on hygiene. Experts are brought with films on childbirth and VD to the school to teach the little kiddies!! But to foil a happy ending the girl who was pregnant gives birth to a stillborn child, and I guess everyone lives happily ever after.Although this film is nothing special or sensational, it was the marketing of it that made everyone come to it. The shows were segregated by gender, attendants posed as nurses and handed out booklets on sexual hygiene, all this added to the expectation that what audiences would see is something special. When audiences were sometimes letdown, a square up reel was shown (a square up reel is another short film afterwards, typically something really hot). Usually the square up reel was a live childbirth scene, (or something more sensational) that more than likely gave the audiences some satisfaction in seeing this film.