Sex as Education: A Note on Pre-1930 Social Hygiene Films

SEX AS EDUCATION: A NOTE ON PRE-1930 SOCIAL HYGIENE FILMS by John D. Stevens Almost from the beginning, motion picture producers lured audiences with promises of sex, and they became experts at chopping a boudoir scene "just in time." Fortunately, the imaginations of the audience were beyond the censors' scissors and codebooks. But even before World War I, there was some explicit sex on the screens. These were the "sex education" films. These reels showed live births and close-ups of healthy and diseased genitals and were narrated by "expert" lecturers before audiences segregated by sex. These short reels were sombre and grave, especially in contrast to the inevitable other film on the bill, a "problem" feature turned out by either a regular or fly-by-night studio. Prostitution, birth control, venereal disease and drugs—these topics all were exploited. Passed off as "educational," they drew few complaints when they played rock-ribbed conservative burghs, as many of them did until they wore out their sprockets, decades later. Reformers helped finance a six-reel feature called Traffic in Souls (1913), which opened in New York City and played 28 houses there before going on the road. Its topic, prostitution, was otherwise off-limits as was venereal disease, the subject of another pre-war film, TNT (The Naked Truth). Both had long careers. A feature film based on Margaret Sanger's legal harassment, The Law of Population Control (1917), was screened in many towns that never would have rented a hall to the birth control advocate, herself. (Incidentally, a young Tyrone Power portrayed the defense attorney in the last one.) World War I greatly increased the attention to venereal disease. Warner Brothers, then a tiny, struggling studio, produced Open Your Eyes John V. Ste.ve.nA Xa Vfio^eASon o£ Communication at the UniveAAity o{, Michigan. The author oi {¡ouA bookA on media hXAtofiy and law, he Xa past head o{¡ the HXAtofiy VivXAion o{¡ the Association {¡??. Education in JouAnalXAm and Moas CommunicatÁjon. 84 in 1919, one of many such films. The New York Times actually reviewed that one (unusual for films in that genre), calling it important and praising the acting but admitting it was not a "pleasant picture."' Apparently there was a continuing demand for such films. The Strand in Hastings, Michigan (population 5,000) played one nearly every summer. The conservative local weekly praised one such film as "a step in the right direction" and praised the lecturer for his "plain, earnest and helpful" comments. As in many small towns, the ladies went to the matinee and the men to the evening performance. Sometimes the show played one day and sometimes two. Admission was 50 cents, double the usual box office charge. In another Michigan town, the editor of the weekly said of a VD film: "It is gratifying to know that at last our false modesty is being set aside and the young people are being taught the true value of sex cleanliness. "^ There, the theater offered morning showings for all the high school pupils, on a sex-segregated basis, of course. Such films played the South, too. Are You Fit to Marry? played one week for women and then a week for men in Louisville in 1925. The Walnut Theater had continuous showings from 10:30 a.m. to 11:00 p.m. The ads insisted, "It is your social duty to see this picture." Pitfalls of Passion filled the Melba Theater in Baton Rouge in 1928.^ Life Before Birth ran for seven weeks in a Chicago Loop theater in the summer of 1922. The ads urged: "Bring your daughters and sons" to the sex-segregated showings and promised the "delicate subjects and scenes" were handled tastefully. The president of the Chicago school board spoke at a special "family night" showing, the only time men and women attended together. Several films exposed the dangers of drugs, the most notable being Human Wreckage, a 1923 film written and produced by the widow of film idol Wallace Reid, whose death from an overdose made national headlines. She often delivered the lectures that preceded the showings, as well. A 1916 drug film, The Devil 's Needle, with...