Mom and Dad (known as
The Family Story in the United Kingdom) is a feature-length
1945 filmThe year 1945 in film involved some significant events.-Events:* Paramount Studios releases theatrical short cartoon titled The Friendly Ghost, featuring a ghost named Casper.* With Rossellini's Roma Città aperta, Italian neorealist cinema begins....
directed by
William BeaudineWilliam Beaudine was an American film actor and director. He was one of Hollywood's most prolific directors, turning out films in remarkable numbers and in a wide variety of genres.-Silents and British films:...
, and largely produced by the
exploitation filmExploitation film is a type of film that is promoted by "exploiting" often lurid subject matter. The term "exploitation" is common in film marketing, used for all types of films to mean promotion or advertising. Thus, films need something to "exploit", such as a big star, special effects, sex,...
maker and presenter
Kroger BabbHoward W. "Kroger" Babb was an American film and television producer and showman. His marketing techniques were similar to a travelling salesman's, with roots in the medicine-show tradition...
.
Mom and Dad is considered the most successful film within its
genreA genre is a loose set of criteria for a category of composition; the term is often used to categorize literature and speech, but is also used for any other form of art or utterance...
of "sex hygiene" films. Although it faced numerous legal challenges, and was condemned by the
National Legion of DecencyThe National Legion of Decency was an organization dedicated to identifying and combating objectionable content, from the point of view of the Roman Catholic Church in the United States, in motion pictures...
, it went on to become one of the highest-grossing films of the 1940s.
Mom and Dad starred
Hardie AlbrightHardie Albright was an American actor and the son of travelling vaudevillians.Born as Hardie Hunter Albrecht, he made his stage debut in one of his parents' acts at the age of 7....
.
Mom and Dad (known as
The Family Story in the United Kingdom) is a feature-length
1945 filmThe year 1945 in film involved some significant events.-Events:* Paramount Studios releases theatrical short cartoon titled The Friendly Ghost, featuring a ghost named Casper.* With Rossellini's Roma Città aperta, Italian neorealist cinema begins....
directed by
William BeaudineWilliam Beaudine was an American film actor and director. He was one of Hollywood's most prolific directors, turning out films in remarkable numbers and in a wide variety of genres.-Silents and British films:...
, and largely produced by the
exploitation filmExploitation film is a type of film that is promoted by "exploiting" often lurid subject matter. The term "exploitation" is common in film marketing, used for all types of films to mean promotion or advertising. Thus, films need something to "exploit", such as a big star, special effects, sex,...
maker and presenter
Kroger BabbHoward W. "Kroger" Babb was an American film and television producer and showman. His marketing techniques were similar to a travelling salesman's, with roots in the medicine-show tradition...
.
Mom and Dad is considered the most successful film within its
genreA genre is a loose set of criteria for a category of composition; the term is often used to categorize literature and speech, but is also used for any other form of art or utterance...
of "sex hygiene" films. Although it faced numerous legal challenges, and was condemned by the
National Legion of DecencyThe National Legion of Decency was an organization dedicated to identifying and combating objectionable content, from the point of view of the Roman Catholic Church in the United States, in motion pictures...
, it went on to become one of the highest-grossing films of the 1940s.
Mom and Dad starred
Hardie AlbrightHardie Albright was an American actor and the son of travelling vaudevillians.Born as Hardie Hunter Albrecht, he made his stage debut in one of his parents' acts at the age of 7....
. It is regarded as an exploitation film, a term used to describe repackaged films with a controversial content, sometimes including medical footage, designed to establish an educational value that might circumvent U.S.
censorshipCensorship is the suppression of speech or deletion of communicative material which may be considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, or inconvenient to the government or media organizations as determined by a censor.-Rationale:...
laws.
Babb's marketing of his film incorporated old-style
medicine showMedicine shows were traveling horse and wagon teams which peddled miracle medications and other products between various entertainment acts. Their precise origins unknown, medicine shows were common in the 19th century United States...
techniques, and used unique promotions to build an audience. These formed a template for his later works, which were imitated by his contemporary filmmakers. In 2005, the film was added to the
United States National Film RegistryThe National Film Registry is the United States National Film Preservation Board's selection of films for preservation in the Library of Congress. The Board, established by the National Film Preservation Act of 1988, was reauthorized by acts of Congress in 1992, 1996, 2005, and again in October 2008...
, in recognition of its numerous achievements.
Production
Despite the commercially successful run of Babb's debut film,
Dust to Dust—a reworked version of the 1938 film
Child BrideChild Bride, also known as Child Bride of the Ozarks,Child Brides and Dust to Dust , is a 1938 film directed by Harry Revier. Set in a remote town in the Ozarks, it claims to be an attempt to draw attention to the lack of laws banning child marriage in many states...
—his production company
Cox and UnderwoodCox and Underwood was the name of an exploitation film travelling road show and production company from the 1930s run by Howard Russell Cox and Howard Underwood...
disbanded, forcing him to form his own unit,
Hygienic ProductionsHygienic Productions was a film production company based out of Wilmington, Ohio. Formed by exploitation film producer Kroger Babb, the company was in charge of promotion and production for a number of Babb's films, including the infamous Mom and Dad....
. Having attended a meeting in
Burkburnett, TexasBurkburnett is a city in Wichita County, Texas, United States. It is part of the Wichita Falls, Texas Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 10,927 at the 2000 census. The community's newspaper is the Burkburnett Informer/Star...
, that discussed the alleged mass impregnations of young women by G.I.s from the nearby
Sheppard Air Force BaseSheppard Air Force Base is a United States Air Force base located five miles north of the central business district of Wichita Falls, in Wichita County, Texas, United States. It is the largest training base and most diversified in Air Education and Training Command...
, Babb was inspired to shoot a film based on the subject. His future wife
Mildred HornMildred 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...
drafted a screenplay which later evolved into
Mom and Dad. Babb located twenty investors willing to fund the movie, and hired William Beaudine as his director.
Production of the film cost Babb and his investors a total of $63,000. The movie was shot in five separate studios over six days in 1944, and was spread across various
Monogram PicturesMonogram Pictures Corporation was a Hollywood studio that produced and released films, most on low budgets, between 1931 and 1953, when the firm completed a transition to the name Allied Artists. Monogram is considered a leader among the smaller studios sometimes referred to collectively as Poverty...
lots; co-producer
J. S. JosseyJack S. Jossey was an American film producer and businessman. A Seagram stockholder, he helped finance and film many exploitation films during the 1940s, including Mom and Dad and The Prince of Peace.-References:...
was a Monogram stockholder. On January 3, 1945,
Mom and Dad premiered at the
Warner Bros.Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc. Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc. Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc. (also known as Warner Bros. Pictures, or simply Warner Bros.—the shortened form of the former official, sometimes still used, formal corporate name: Warner Brothers
theatre in Oklahoma City, OklahomaOklahoma City is the capital and largest city of the U.S. state of Oklahoma. The county seat of Oklahoma County, the city ranks 31st among United States cities in population. The city's estimated population as of 2008 was 551,789, with an estimated metro-area population of 1,206,142...
.
The plot is padded with a large amount of fillerIn media, filler is material that is combined with material of greater relevance or quality to "fill out" a certain volume.-Early TV:In the early days of television, most output was live. The hours of broadcast were limited and so, for test purposes, a test card was commonly broadcast at other times...
. Films of this type were usually produced quickly and at minimal cost, and while filler was sometimes used to increase the production value, the usual motivation was to extend its running time to qualify for feature lengthIn the film industry, a feature film is a film made for initial distribution in theaters and being the "main attraction" of the screening...
status. Eric SchaeferDr. Eric Schaefer is a professor and film historian. A member of the Northeast Historic Film Board of Advisors, he is an associate professor at Emerson College and is best known for his book on exploitation filmmaking, Bold! Daring! Shocking! True": A History of Exploitation Films, 1919-1959,...
notes that the "primary purpose" of the plot of Mom and Dad was to "serve as the vehicle onto which the spectacle of the clinical reels can be grafted," such as the live birth scene. The marketing materials suggest the latter reason also, and many posters for the film promised that "You [will] actually SEE the birth of a baby!" The dialogue is carefully worded, and uses period euphemisms rather than explicit terms that may have been controversial at the time. In particular, at no time does the film specifically mention sexual intercourseSexual intercourse, also known as copulation or coitus, commonly refers to the act in which the male reproductive organ enters the female reproductive tract. The two entities may be of opposite sexes or not, or they may be hermaphroditic, as is the case with snails...
or pregnancyPregnancy is the carrying of one or more offspring, known as a fetus or embryo, inside the uterus of a female. In a pregnancy, there can be multiple gestations, as in the case of twins or triplets. Human pregnancy is the most studied of all mammalian pregnancies. Obstetrics is the surgical field...
.
Plot
Mom and Dad tells the story of Joan Blake (June Carlson), a young girl who falls for the pilot Jack Griffin (Bob Lowell). After being sweet talked by Griffin, she has sex with him. The girl requests "hygiene booksThe social or mental hygiene movement of the late 19th and early 20th centuries was an attempt by Progressive-era reformers to control venereal disease, regulate prostitution and vice, and disseminate sexual education through the use of scientific research methods and modern media techniques.The...
" from her mother Sarah Blake (Lois Austin); however, the mother refuses because the girl is not yet married. The girl later learns from her father Dan Blake (George Eldridge) that the pilot has died in a crash. She tears up a letter she had been writing to him, and lowers her head as the film fades into intermission.
The film resumes at the point when the girl discovers that her clothes no longer fit, sending her into a state of despair. She takes advice from her teacher, Carl Blackburn (Hardie Albright), who had previously been fired for teaching sex education. Blackburn blames her mother for the problem, and accuses her of "neglect[ing] the sacred duty of telling their children the real truth." Only then is the girl able to confront her mother.
The film then presents reels and charts which include graphic images of the female anatomy, and footage of live births - one natural and one Caesarian. In some screenings, a second film was shown along with Mom and Dad, and contained images portraying syphilisSyphilis is a sexually transmitted disease caused by the spirochetal bacterium Treponema pallidum subspecies pallidum. The route of transmission of syphilis is almost always through sexual contact, although there are examples of congenital syphilis via transmission from mother to child in utero.The...
and venereal disease. Mom and Dad is believed to have had a number of endings, although most typically concluded with the birth of the girl's child, sometimes stillbornA stillbirth occurs when a fetus which has died, in the uterus or during labor or delivery, exits a woman's body. The term is often used in distinction to live birth or miscarriage. Most stillbirths occur in full term pregnancies....
and other times put up for adoption.
Cast
- Hardie Albright
Hardie Albright was an American actor and the son of travelling vaudevillians.Born as Hardie Hunter Albrecht, he made his stage debut in one of his parents' acts at the age of 7....
– Carl Blackburn, the teacher.
- Lois Austin
Lois Austin was an American actress, who had a number of film and television roles to her credit, including The Amos 'n Andy Show as "Harriett Harrington". She was also documented in the series You Are There in 1955.-External links:*...
– Sarah Blake, the mother.
- George Eldridge – Dan Blake, the father.
- June Carlson – Joan Blake, the teen-age girl.
- Jimmy Clark – Joan's brother.
- Bob Lowell – Jack Griffin, the pilot.
- Jane Izbell – Mary Lou, Joan's friend.
- Jimmy Zaner – Allen Curtis, Joan's hometown boyfriend.
- Robert Filmer – Superintendent McMann.
- Willa Pearl Curtis – Junella, the Blake family's African-American maid.
- Virginia Van – Virginia, Dave's girlfriend.
- Forrest Taylor
Forrest Taylor was a character actor whose artistic career spanned six different decades, from silents through talkies to the advent of color.-Career:...
– Dr. Ashley, the obstetrician.
- Jack Roper – The coach.
The official credits also acknowledge The Four Liphams as well as the CaliforniaCalifornia is the most populous state in the United States, and the third largest by area. California is the second most populous sub-national entity in the Americas, behind only São Paulo, Brazil...
State Champion dancers of the jitterbug.
Marketing and presentation
In a Washington PostThe Washington Post is the newspaper with the largest circulation in Washington, D.C. and is the city's oldest paper, founded in 1877. Being located in the nation's capital, it has a particular emphasis on national politics and international affairs...
article covering Babb's career, the film critic Kenneth TuranKenneth Turan is an American film critic and Lecturer in the Master of Professional Writing Program at the University of Southern California.-Background:...
wrote that Mom and Dad did not "flourish because of its birth footage or because of its puerile plot, which Babb himself disparages . . . [its] success flowed, rather, from Babb's extraordinary promotional abilities." The film was exhibited across the United States, and over 300 prints were produced. In the weeks preceding the screening, local presenters sought to attract the attention of the town's inhabitants by distributing letters to local newspapers and church leaflets protesting against the film's moral basis. This strategy often utilized fabricated letters supposedly written by the mayor of a nearby city, who wished to register concern about local young women in his area who had seen the film and were awakened enough to discuss problems similar to their own.
The campaigns were usually orchestrated by employees of either Hygienic or Hallmark Productions, and they nominally based their campaign from information provided by a standard and detailed pressbookA pressbook is a piece of promotional material created and distributed by film producers in order to market their films. Prior to 1980, most film companies did their own promotion, and the pressbooks would be given to exhibitors....
containing cast and crew information, as well as other promotionalPromotion involves disseminating information about a product, product line, brand, or company. It is one of the five key aspects of the marketing mix....
and marketing materials. Babb's marketing strategy centered on overwhelming small towns with advertisements and letters, in an attempt to create a controversial atmosphere. In keeping with his motto of "You gotta tell 'em to sell 'em," the film became so ubiquitous that TimeTime is an American newsmagazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong. As of 2009, Time no longer publishes a Canadian advertiser edition...
wrote that its presentation "left only the livestock unaware of the chance to learn the facts of life."
The local pitch included a variety of limited screenings, including adults-only showings, viewings segregated by gender, and a live lecture by the "Fearless Hygiene Commentator Elliot Forbes" which was often placed during the intermission. At any one time, a number of "Elliot Forbes"es would give simultaneous talks in a number of locations showing the film. In some predominantly African-American areas, Olympic gold medalA gold medal is typically the highest medal awarded for achievement in a non-military field. The concept comes from the military, initially with a simple recognition of military rank, and later decorations for admission to military orders dating back to medieval times.Since the eighteenth century,...
ist Jesse OwensJames Cleveland "Jesse" Owens was an American track and field athlete. He participated in the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, Germany, where he achieved international fame by winning four gold medals: one each in the 100 metres, the 200 metres, the long jump, and as part of the 4x100 meter relay...
was hired to make appearances instead of an actor playing Forbes. The "Elliot Forbes" actors were usually people local to the production company, sometimes out-of-work performers. Along with "Forbes," presentations were often held with "nurses" in attendance, ostensibly in the event that someone fainted due to the content of the film; such "nurses" were often hired locally.
Modern Film DistributorsModern Film Distributors was the name of a film distribution organization cartel formed by filmmakers in the 1940s. Following the success of the exploitation film Mom and Dad, the four leading presenters of the time agreed to work together to book each others' films in...
later distributed the film, and sold over forty-five thousand copies of the books Man and Boy and Woman and Girl following Forbes's lecture. The text was written by Babb's wife, and was filled with both biological and sexual education materials relevant to the film's subject matter; generating extra profit items for their distributors. The sales of these books netted an estimated $31,000 for the distribution company, while Babb estimated the total sales for all distributions at 40 million copies.
Babb insisted that the program be followed closely; a contractual agreement with theaters required that each presentation follow a similar approach. Because the Forbes lecture formed part of the viewing, extra newsreelA newsreel was a form of short documentary film prevalent in the first half of the 20th century, regularly released in a public presentation place and containing filmed news stories and items of topical interest. It was a source of news, current affairs and entertainment for millions of moviegoers...
s or short films were not permitted, although previews were allowed. A contractual agreement disallowed matineeMatinée may refer to:* A performance of a play that takes place in the afternoon rather than the evening*"The Dark of the Matinée", a single by Franz Ferdinand*Matinée , by Jack Peñate*Matinee...
pricing, set specific times for the segregated viewings, and prohibited the screening of the film on Sundays.
Reception
It is claimed that Mom and Dad is the third highest grossing film of the 1940s in dollar value, and returned close to $63 for each dollar invested by its backers. The Los Angeles TimesThe Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California since 1881. It is distributed throughout the Western United States. It is the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in the United States and the fourth-most widely distributed newspaper in the United States...
estimates that the film grossed between $40 million and $100 million, and it has been cited as the most successful sex hygiene film ever released. It remains the most profitable pre-1960 exploitation film; ranking among the top ten grossing films of both the 1940s and 1950s, even when scaled against those year's mainstream releases.
The film was at the center of many high profile lawsuits and condemnations. The exploitation genre was pitched against numerous challenges during the 1940s and 1950s, and fought many local censorship battles, and fought bitterly against the motion picture censorship systemThe Motion Picture Production Code was the set of industry censorship guidelines which governed the production of the vast majority of United States motion pictures released by major studios from 1930 to 1968. It was originally popularly known as the Hays Code, after its creator, Will H...
. It has been claimed that nearly 428 lawsuits were laid against both Babb and Mom and Dad during the film's run. Babb often used the supposed educational value of his films as an offer of defense, and recommended such tactic to theater owners in his pressbooks. One successful challenge was in New York CityNew York is the most populous city in the United States, and the center of the New York metropolitan area, which is among the most populous urban areas in the world. A leading global city, New York exerts a powerful influence over worldwide commerce, finance, culture, fashion and entertainment...
, where Mom and Dad remained censored until 1956, when the Appellate Division of the New York State Supreme Court overturned the ruling of the censorship board, deciding that human birth did not qualify as "indecent".
According to Modern Film Distributors, as of the end of 1956, the film has been dubbed into a dozen languages and attended by an estimated worldwide attendance figure of over 175 million people, at over 650,000 performances. Card MondorCard Mondor was an Australian magician and stage performer. He gained fame as a performer in the United States, most notably for entertaining troops during World War II...
purchased the rights to exhibit the film in New Zealand and Australia during the mid-1960s, almost twenty years after the film's debut. In the late 1970s, a story on Babb by the Press-Enterprise estimated that the film had been dubbed into 18 languages.
The film's success spawned a number of imitators, who sought to saturate the market with genre imitations. In particular, Street Corner, recycled Babb's plot, substituting a concerned physicianA physician — also known as medical practitioner, doctor of medicine, medical doctor, or simply doctor — practices the ancient profession of medicine, which is concerned with maintaining or restoring human health through the study, diagnosis, and treatment of disease or injury...
with a concerned teacher. In 1948, UniversalUniversal Studios , a subsidiary of NBC Universal, is one of the six major American movie studios. Its main motion picture production/distribution arm is called Universal Pictures. Its production studios are located at 100 Universal City Plaza Drive in Universal City, California...
produced a similar film, The Story of Bob and Sally, but was unable to screen it due to the production codeThe Motion Picture Production Code was the set of industry censorship guidelines which governed the production of the vast majority of United States motion pictures released by major studios from 1930 to 1968. It was originally popularly known as the Hays Code, after its creator, Will H...
, and eventually sold the rights. The volume of imitations led to the formation of Modern Film Distributors, a group of exploitation filmmakers, in an effort to minimize booking conflicts.
In 1969, the film was submitted to the Motion Picture Association of AmericaThe Motion Picture Association of America , originally the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America, is a United States non-profit business and trade association to advance the business interests of movie studios. The MPAA administers the voluntary but dominant MPAA film rating system...
for a film rating, in order to allow the film be shown in traditional movie theaters; it received an R rating. The movie was such a success that it is still shown decades later around the world. In 2005, a version was added to the National Film Registry,.