We've probably all heard of Reefer Madness at this point. As a matter of fact a lot of you reading this site can probably cite a specific Favorite Moment from Reefer Madness, even if you've only seen it once. Reefer Madness stands relatively untouched as the exploitation movie of the 1930s, if anything because it's one of the few which is still watchable. The Cocaine Fiends, Marihuana, and all the others just don't hold up, because they lack that unique spark that made Reefer Madness fucking crazy. But, while it's still not close to Reefer Madness, Sex Madness is pretty special, if nothing else because it makes for a great riff with friends.
Sex Madness is a relatively plotless depiction of what will happen if you don't listen to your parents (or maybe listen to them too much) and spend your youth going to orgies. Okay, orgies were still off-limits in the '30s, even in exploitation films that posed as education fodder. That doesn't stop our main characters from stopping by a "guest room" party though! We follow the twin narratives of Millicent Hamilton, ambitious young typist and beauty queen, and Tom Lorenz, son of city reformer Paul Lorenz, who is on a quest to eradicate "social diseases" like syphilis. ("Social diseases"? Really? Not only does that have an edge of shaming to it, but "social" is perhaps the most unintentionally hilarious synonym for "sexual" I've heard in a while. It changes so many contexts!) Tom picks up his syphilis at said guest-room party, while Millicent, in her hunger to become a beauty queen champ, is infected via date-rape by her would-be manager. Tom struggles with whether or not to tell his dad and risk ruining his career, while Millicent seeks a cure so she can get married. Because I guess doctors in the 1930s had the authority to stop marriages if someone had syphilis. Or something. Anyway, Tom eventually learns that his dad is on his side, while Millicent is seemingly cured only to infect her husband and baby, killing the latter. I think they still swing for a happy ending, though. Yay?
This movie has all the requisite '30s exploitation tropes: poorly-integrated footage sampled from other films. Evil [minorities] (in this case lesbians). Exaggerated, lip-licking leering. Irrelevant, often nonsensical newspaper headlines ("Sex criminal jailed after baby murder" doesn't really describe any of the events of his film, even when a baby does die). Creaky stage-play cinematography. Horrible, horrible, horrible acting. Moral alarmism. Glorification of what it's ostensibly attacking. Etc., etc. Sex Madness, though, goes beyond in many ways, starting with the fact that it's a sexploitation movie about syphilis. It's the ultimate in combining lurid sexuality with shaming people for the accidental consequences of their actions. It shames people for being sexually assaulted. Every frame of this is subtitled "Ewwwww" in invisible ink. For every moment we're supposed to be aroused by the turn of a shapely gam or stock footage of dancing girls, there are characters pontificating about the horrors of one of the most gruesome diseases a human being can contract. They also feature footage of someone afflicted with the disease which may be fake, but the extra scratches on the film print suggest that perhaps this is real medical footage. I mean, it's far from ending your movie with dog surgery like Life Returns, or with live birth reels like a lot of the roadshow exploitation flicks did, but man, they really made sure you knew the word "exploitation" back then. Sometimes these 1930s films will do stuff that would shock the directors of the fucking 1970s. Someday someone is going to unearth a 1930s-era snuff film, or at least an equivalent of Faces of Death. Not only it is pretty sick to exploit people who already face heavy stigma to begin with (this movie is an entire novel on STD stigma), but to blend it in with content that's meant to turn the audience on is rather a cheap blow. More like a string of cheap blows, if we're being fair.
But there's the mundane stuff, too, which makes this stand out to me. I have to anatomize one scene in particular, because it was such a bizarre thing to witness. Was I warned of this scene in a review? Or have I seen this movie before and simply bleached it from my memory? Because there is a scene in this movie where Millicent fudges her line due to a window accidentally slamming in the background, and it came in like I was expecting it. Reshooting probably didn't even come up in discussion when this scene was filmed. The actors probably just whipped out their cigarettes (or joints) when they yelled cut and wondered if there was booze enough in the world to make them forget this mess. Seriously, this is one of the most dramatic and obvious flubs I've seen in a while. I have to wonder how fucking likely this even was. If I left my windows wide open it could be months before they slam closed by themselves. Either they were filming on a shithole location (probable) or the set was fucking haunted (equally probable).
I've been obsessed with the word synecdoche lately and I've been passing it on to my friends: and this scene, friends, is synecdoche. The statement and sum of the whole movie is held in that slamming window, that flubbed take.
Anyway, I don't want to say you should watch an entire movie just to see a window slam, but man, did I get a kick out of that. Also: all of the leering in this movie. If you make it a double feature with Reefer Madness make this the opening feature, not the follow-up. And if you value your souls, please turn your brains off before viewing.
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