More Cult Classics

Sex Madness (1934)

Apparently down through the ages there has been a menace worse than the worst criminal, and that menace is...Syphilis. In this movie we will learn all about this evil, I presumed.
What we really learned was that New York leads to killing babies, or perhaps its being in burlesque anywhere that leads to babies dying.
This movies forward said the only way to save the youth from syphilis was through education, but the movie was really all about how their are lots of 'quack' doctors out there who claim they can cure syphilis but are really just stealing the money of their patients.
To be honest, I'm not really sure what this movie was saying. I don't they mentioned the word sex once, only that people needed to not be afraid of having the important talks. I guess that's an euphemism for sex.


Slaves in Bondage (1936)

Since all of the others movies of this Cult Classics collection have all been either anti something or pro something, so that I expected that this would be the same kind of film. But, it wasn't.
This film is about a couple of small time gangsters that in the start of the film at least are kidnapping girls to use as prostitutes. But they don't seem much like thugs, more like shysters. They do employ a bunch of thugs and at one point have a couple kill another one.
The premise is that Belle Harris runs a manicure salon, and puts ads in small town newspapers for jobs for pretty girls no experience necessary. The girls show up, Belle checks them out, if they're pretty they end up getting jobs as "entertainers" or are forced into prostitution.
Belle's partner Jim Harris does a bunch of other illegal things - like kidnapping the girl at the start. He's an all around bad guy. He ends up setting his sights on the heroine of the tale, Donna who has come to the city with her boyfriend Phil who wants to be a reporter.
Donna spurns Jim's advances, so Jim frames Phil to get him out of the picture and then tries to alternatively woo Donna or get her to work for him, and eventually decides to force himself on her, but by then Donna has talked to the local paper, and the editor called the police and they rescue her in a nick of time. All the bad guys go to jail, Phil gets the job and he Donna are to be married.
There was a point where I thought that there might be a message to the film, but it was a false alarm.
I can't believe I watched the whole thing. It helps that it was only 67 minutes long, but still. This was the best of the films so far, but that's not saying much. Interestingly, this film showed a dance number and 3 different vaudeville acts that were tangential to the story at best, but had they not been there, the movie would have only 50 minutes long.
These films were fun when I was younger, not this one in particular, as I've never seen it before, but these old cult classics that were so bad that they were good because you'd sit around with a bunch of friends at mock it while you watched, usually with some alcohol involved. But most of the films that I enjoyed were from the 50s, all of the flicks from earlier are down right depressing to watch. I'm sure watching them by myself sober is a mitigating factor as well. They just make me glad that I can exercise the right to make this one my last one.

3 Cult Classics

The Cocaine Fiends (1936)

This film's purpose is to expose the "Dope Evil", which totally had different connotations 76 years ago, I'm guessing. This little flick was directed by Wm. A. O'Connor and stars Lois January and Noel Madison, which to me sound like 1930s porn names (I'm sure they were nice ladies, regardless).
It's really hard to tell where the quality issues should be applied to - did the original movie have such horribly shot night scenes, or was it from transferring it to video, and then later to DVD? I'll cut the film some slack, since it's so old. But, not for the sound. I'm guessing they miked all the floors or even more likely over-dubbed the walking/running sounds, because they aer so damned loud. That, or everyone in the 30s were wearing tap shoes.
Newsflash, the 'head ache powder' is really dope. I repeat head ache powder is really dope, "co-caine", "kit-kat mix". Also, when on the head ache powder, everything is swell. That is until Nick doesn't marry you, and oh by the way, the hotel you're staying in is really a brothel.
Also, "questing" is an old, seldom used word that means looking or searching. I should tell all my gaming buddings that. They will all be shocked to learn that word and maybe even will start using it...I wonder if we could use it as a noun?
Making whoopy doesn't appear to mean the same thing any longer either. Then - whoopy meant going out and having a swell time, now, it's a nice way of saying that you're getting it on. Swell is used the same way as it was in the 50s through to Happy Days.
Also, just like now, if you don't know how to dance, you will lose the girl to the evil bastard drug dealer every single time. The prettier the girl and the slimier the bastard drug dealer, the faster it happens. Some things never change. I don't know if should feel consoled that I would have been as big a loser in 1936 as I am now, or if it should bother me that even time travel cannot help a guy like me. Note to self, when time machine is invented, learn to dance before going anywhen. Also, beware the dope evil.
As far as this film goes, the women are better actors than the men, across the board. I know that the evils of cocaine or dope or whatever is the aim of the movie and they try to show that dope is at the root of all the evils of society, but what they show in each and every case is bad economics - poor people trying to get a foot up, or rich people out slumming it and wanting to be "tough". I have a hard time buying that doing cocaine leads directly to committing suicide, with a stop on an unmarried pregnancy along the way. Or that doing head ache powder leads directly to prostitution then to murder. Somehow, while the drug dealing men and drug using men thought of as "hard", they are not held to blame for anything that happens to the women who are using the dope, even though in all the cases in this movie, it's the men pressuring this women to do the dope. Funny how that works.

Test Tube Babies (1948)
When I saw how old this film was, I thought it couldn't possibly mean test tube babies in the context I was thinking of, but then the credits role with a  nice, full screen statement, "Medical and Technical Data approved and supervised by The NATIONAL RESEARCH FOUNDATION FOR FERTILITY INCORPORATED Nt L.I. N.Y." I preserved capitalization and think that L.I. must mean Long Island.
This next line is to the tune of the Brady Bunch theme song.
Here's a story, of George and Kathy, who were living boring little lives.

What can I say about this film? It starts of with a text description of the whole movie and then proceeds to act that description out. Act it out horribly. Horribly acting out the horrible acting of actors acting horribly. And then there's a party at Kathy and George's while George is at the office, and next thing you know there's a cat fight and a topless women. In a 1948 film. I didn't see that coming. And right after this, Kathy and George talk about a divorce, but realize the solution to all of their problems is having a baby. Because that will make George work less. They go to a gynecologist, or as they pronounce it "gee-neh-cologist" and BAM, we're saying Kathy naked. You go 1940s propaganda film! This is also where the sponsorship becomes obvious as they actually discuss Kathy's results and send George to see an Urologist. Of course, we don't see George naked or giving a sample, just a man peering through a microscope.
The next visit is all about artificial insemination. It involves a lecture and a wall chart and some discussion of chromosomes and how the donors are picked. Did I mention that that the doctor is named Dr. Right? Or I guess it could be Write. Whatever. He sounds an awful lot like Rod Serling.
Because it's noticeable for it's absence up to this point, Dr. Right smokes. While the artificial insemination is going on, George pulls one out and smokes it. Humorously, right after the insemination, Dr. Right comes out to tell George it went fine and seems a touch out of breath and sits down on the corner of the desk and has a post (artificial) coital cigarette. Of course the effort works and next thing you know, George is at the hospital chain smoking while Kathy is in labor. The doctor comes out to comfort him and actually sends George away to buy smokes for both of them.
Due to the film being spliced together, I hope because of bad spots, we go right from the above scene to a voiced over speech in a nursery full of babies. From there the next scene is George and Kathy five years later, with three kids and both saying how happy they are, which cuts to a message saying to go see your obstetrician if you want ot get pregnant - I'm only paraphrasing a little bit on that.