For those who thought "Reefer Madness" was the first exploitation movie you'll be interested to know that the genre was alive and well during the silent era. "Street of Forgotten Women" is the usual potboiler about a rich girl who is disowned by her father when she decides she wants a career in show business. After sinking her money in a stage production which immediately flops, she's forced to try and earn a living dancing in a saloon in her underwear. Even worse, she is forced into prostitution in a slum apartment that just happens to be owned by HER FATHER!!!!!
A woman searching Africa for her long-lost husband stumbles across a lost civilization in the jungles consisting mainly of nude and semi-nude women (which probably explains why her husband has stayed lost for such a long time).
An expedition enters an area of the Congo jungle to investigate reports of a gorilla-worshipping tribe.
Early "shockumentary", apparently shot in Egypt, which documents the habits of opium addicts. The interiors of drug dens are shown, and at the conclusion the film an addict is shown collapsing on a sand dune; the booming voice of the narrator informs us that the addict has perished. Footage used is from the silent film Dope Fiends.
You shall not commit adultery. Also known as Sins of Love.
A pseudo-documentary, “Samarang” tells the story of lowly Ahmang (Captain A.V. Cockle) and his socially superior love, Sai-Yu (Theresa Seth). Both live in the village of Samarang in the Indian Ocean. Because Sai-Yu is the daughter of a chief and Ahmang is but a poor fisherman, he needs to increase his wealth before asking for her hand. Thus he accepts the perilous offer of the wily Chang-Fu, who seeks pearl divers. Ahmang must brave the treacherous waters of the Forbidden Lagoon of Sakai, home to bloodthirsty cannibals, killer sharks, and a monstrous grasping octopus. Sai-Yu and Ahmang’s younger brother Ko-Hai come along for kicks, too. Ahmang finds his pearl, but he and Sai-Yu are stranded on the island, where they befriend a local orangutan. When they return to the boat, a shark kills Ko-Hai, and Ahmang must get revenge.
A once-promising doctor begins a downward spiral, finding himself in opium dens, a carnival freak show, and drugs parties.
A remake of the 1917 picture of the same name. Ruth, the offspring of Stevens' hypocritical brother, is neglected by her parents in matters of sex education; as consequence, she trods the primrose path, ending up pregnant, then dead.
An ex-vaudeville actor is working as the assistant to a doctor who has Frankenstein aspirations. The ex-vaudeville actor kills the doctor and decides to assume the identity of the dead physician.
Basically a travelogue featuring footage of Angkor Wat (in Cambodia) shot by a couple of explorers in the WWI years, with additional footage shot on a set in Hollywood by George M. Merrick.
Fact and fiction collide in this exploitation flick that employs documentary footage depicting the bizarre self-flagellation rituals of the fanatical Catholic sect known as the Penitentes. Mixed with those truly disturbing sequences is a story concerning a killing in New Mexico, itself inspired by the murder of real-life reporter Carl Taylor as he worked on an article on the Penitentes.
Get ready for a roller-coaster trip of emotion with this campy collection from the golden age of Hollywood! Originally intended to warn America's youth of the perils of drugs, sex, and alcohol, these outlandish and unintentionally hilarious tales have heartache, tragedy, crime, and even insanity, lurking around every corner!
The easing of domestic tensions is the cover story for this little number. After history’s most uncomfortable bridge game, two couples retire to their respective homes where the wives each undress incrementally before stepping in the bath. While one harangues her husband about his losing bridge game and failing career, the other offers her man reassuring compliments and soothing come ons.
This little-seen compilation 'educational' documentary from producer Samuel Cummins was an independently-produced jungle exploitation film typical of the 30s. It was inspired after the success of the pre-Code exploitation film Ingagi (1931) about gorilla-worshipping Congolese native women, and after the success of RKO's King Kong (1933). The film speculated that there was social/sexual intercourse or matings between African women and gorillas, after a Ubangi maiden was abducted by a gorilla and carried off into the jungle. It was considered scandalous and "off-color" by the Board of Review because of the theme of "the mating of women with wild animals and because of nude figures in the picture." The film included sensational content (ineptly interspersed with horrible stock footage) including a few shots of topless native women (censored versions superimposed fake ferns over bare breasts) and lusty gorillas (men in monkey suits). (filmsite.org)
Jennie is a twelve-year-old girl living with her parents in extremely rural mountain country. Her schoolteacher, Miss Carol, though a mountain girl herself, has gone off to be educated and returned in hopes of stopping the tradition of child marriage which permeates the culture. Jennie's father Ira is a good man who tries to protect Miss Carol from the men who threaten her if she doesn't call off her crusade. One of these men, Jake Bolby, has his eye on little Jennie and plots to make her his bride.
Wilbur Crane is a meek, mild-mannered bookkeeper who no longer finds his wife, Martha, attractive and sets out for a little fling among the fast crowd while looking for love in all the wrong places. Dorothy, a gold-digger first class, and her business-manager friend, Danny, oblige him. Through camera angles,"art" photos, some semi-nudity, special camera-effects (by Ray Mercer), and strange interludes in Wilbur's mind, and off-screen voices, long-time poverty-row b-western director Bernard B. Ray embarks on the exploitation trail.
Mrs. Burgess explains menstruation to her teen-aged daughter by showing her diagrams in a medical book. Her daughter-in-law Mary then tells Mrs. Burgess that she wishes that she, too, knew more about her body. She also reveals that she may be expecting a baby and is apprehensive about her safety and the changes that a new baby will bring to her life.
High-school principal Dr. Alfred Carroll relates to an audience of parents that marijuana can have devastating effects on teens: a drug supplier entices several restless teens, Mary and Jimmy Lane, sister and brother, and Bill, Mary's boyfriend, into frequenting a reefer house. Gradually, Bill and Jimmy are drawn into smoking dope, which affects their family lives.
A pair of nightclub owners run a string of escort bureaus where men pay for the "companionship" of young women. The district attorney sends an undercover agent to infiltrate the bureaus.
Teen-Age is another "exposé" film of the 1940s, cheaply made but widely distributed. In the guise of a warning against wartime juvenile delinquency, the film offers the exploitational tale of a bunch of wild, unsupervised kids at large in a small community. With nothing but time on their hands, the young protagonists become involved with petty theft, inevitably leading to some pretty serious consequences.