''Damaged Lives'' is a 1933 Canadian/American

pre-Code Pre-Code Hollywood was the brief era in the Cinema of the United States, American film industry between the widespread adoption of sound in film in 1929LaSalle (2002), p. 1. and the enforcement of the Motion Picture Production Code censorshi ...

exploitation film An exploitation film is a film that tries to succeed financially by exploiting current trends, niche genres, or lurid content. Exploitation films are generally low-quality "B movies", though some set trends, attract critical attention, become hi ...

directed by Edgar G. Ulmer. The screenplay is based on the French play '' Les Avariés'' (1901) by

Eugène Brieux Eugène Brieux (; 19 January 18586 December 1932), French dramatist, was born in Paris of poor parents. Biography Works A one-act play, ''Bernard Palissy'', written in collaboration with M. Gaston Salandri, was produced in 1879, but he h ...

.Bogdanovich, Peter (1997) (New York: Knopf) The film was shot at

General Service Studios Sunset Las Palmas Studios, formerly General Service Studios and Hollywood Center Studios, is an American independent entertainment production lot located at 1040 North Las Palmas Avenue in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, providing stage facil ...

, Hollywood, California for the Canadian Social Health Council and premiered in Toronto, Ontario. ''Damaged Lives'' was initially released in Canada and a few cities in the United States but screenings were blocked by censors in most American towns. In 1937, the film was re-released as ''The Shocking Truth'' with a 29-minute supplementary lecture on VD added onto the end of the film to satisfy censors. Most current video releases do not include this extra material.

Plot

The film hinges on a casual sexual encounter. A boss insists that a young executive, with an important job and a long-term girlfriend, go out for the evening with an important client. They go to a swank party, where he meets the businessman's escort. Their personalities connect, and after the businessman leaves with another woman, they leave together and have a casual sexual encounter. The next day, the executive proposes to his girlfriend, they marry, and she becomes pregnant. The escort subsequently learns that she has syphilis from the businessman and summons the executive. She informs him of the situation, then kills herself. Later, a medical exam on the wife reveals that her unborn child has syphilis, indicating that one or both of the parents are syphilitic. The executive reveals that he passed it on from the escort. Their friends, while supportive, now want to avoid physical contact with the pair. The distraught wife then tries to kill herself and her husband, thinking that they could never live a normal life. The husband tries to console his wife...explaining how treatments are available and that they can be cured. When another friend calls the wife to say she also has syphilis and her worries are so trivial, the wife finally realizes she will be okay.

Cast

Production

Filmed in 1933, this cautionary tale was distributed under the name Weldon Pictures, because Columbia did not want to be associated with the topic of the film. The end title of the

Internet Archive The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music, ...

print says the film was an Educational Film Exchanges, Inc. release. Although some scenes in the film were cut by state film censor boards in

Maryland Maryland ( ) is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It shares borders with Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware and the Atlantic Ocean to ...

and

Ohio Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The sta ...

, it was still very popular in the United States. For example, in

Baltimore Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the List of municipalities in Maryland, most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, and List of United States cities by popula ...

65,000 people saw the film, representing approximately 10% of the population. ''Damaged Lives'' was distributed in Britain through the

British Social Hygiene Council British Social Hygiene Council (BSHC, until 1925 the National Council for Combating Venereal Diseases, NCCVD) was a British organization dedicated to eradicating venereal diseases and educating the public about them. It has been founded in 1914. S ...

(BSHC), which claimed a total viewership of around four million people between August 1933 and May 1934. The BSHC also claimed to have distributed more than 126,000 pamphlets to audience members with information on syphilis treatment.

References

External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Damaged Lives 1933 films 1930s English-language films 1933 drama films American films based on plays Films directed by Edgar G. Ulmer American black-and-white films Films about syphilis American drama films Canadian drama films English-language Canadian films Canadian black-and-white films Films shot in California 1930s American films 1930s Canadian films