Mom And Dad

What do you think is the top grossing film of the 1940s ? Surely, it’s got to be Casablanca… or maybe Frank Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life… In any case, it’s got to be from Warner Brothers or an MGM release…

Or maybe not…

Have you ever heard of Mom and Dad? I guess not. In 1945, Hygienic Productions & Monogram Pictures released this William Beaudine feature and broke all records. It became the biggest money-maker of the decade.

If you’ve never heard of Monogram pictures, it’s because this studio is often referred to as poverty row and its specialty was to produce hastily and cheaply made pictures. As expected, the quality was seldom part of the deal, but the use of washed-up stars such as Bela Lugosi that still drove audiences to the theater and the reduced costs of the films made them always profitable.

And William Beaudine was indeed the ideal filmmaker for such productions. One of the most respected directors of the silent era, he worked with Mary Pickford,  D.W. Griffith, Richard Thorpe, William Haines, Mary Astor, Loretta Young, Jean Harlow, Mae Clarke, Joan Blondell, Zasu Pitts, W.C. Fields, etc.

But his star waned in the mid 1930s and he directed worse and worse pictures. By the 1950s, he worked almost exclusively on historically and universally recognized stinkers like Bela Lugosi and the Brooklyn Gorilla or Jesse James Meets Frankenstein’s Daughter. Thankfully for him, TV came along and he worked on more prestigious projects such as Lassie, or Walt Disney’s shows.

William Beaudine had a reputation for efficiency and swiftness (an understatement in his case) : he apparently shot the minimum amount of film needed for a scene, just enough to be able to correct the sometimes less than stellar performances of the actors and the various technical mistakes in the editing room. This later earned him the nickname of “One shot” although he did make multiple takes when needed (as the trailers using alternate scenes attest).

So what did Mom And Dad offer to 1940s audiences that created such a money-magnet sensation? And how come nobody remembers a hit like that? What is it that people needed so then and is wildly available now?

Sex ed! A high school student whose parents won’t discuss sex with her gets pregnant by an airplane pilot who dies in a plane crash. Marketing made the film. Special segregated-gender showings of the film were organized, with live actors posing as doctors and nurses who were in charge of selling tie-in books about sex. Men were allowed to see an additional reel about VD, and women were treated to a live birth.

 

The fact that the same man (obviously fictitious Elliot Forbes) could be present at every showing of the film throughout the country at the same time did not seem to disturb the press (see the newspaper clipping), neither did it keep audiences from flocking to the theaters. The only showings where Elliot Forbes was replaced were for black audiences where Olympic star Jesse Owens became the pitchman (Elliot Forbes's name can still be read under the hastily-pasted Jesse Owens tag on this poster).

That strategy made millions of dollars and the film was selected by the National Film Registry in 2005. Now the film is even available on DVD and on Blu-ray!

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That’s all for today folks!