Street Corner

Street Corner is about a young and most naive teen who goes all the way with her boyfriend on prom night. Then after Don Brodie goes off to college Marcia Mae Jones misses a period and then Brodie is killed in a car crash. What's a girl to do who hasn't had a heart to heart with mom about the facts of life?

This low budget indie is like watching an army training film for the WACS. It could be the Reefer Madness of sex ed. Kindly, but stern Joseph Crehan the family doctor narrates Marcia Mae's story. Mind you this is all before the pill, before abortions were made legal and the word 'condom' is not mentioned.

Gretl Dupont plays this evil foreign looking and sounding woman who is your back alley abortionist of the day. She's the reason why Planned Parenthood came into existence.

Let us thank the Creator/Deity that ludicrous films like this are now seen for what they are.

The movie is like watching an in classroom movie from back in the fifties or sixties about sex. The young girl was pretty hot though and had nice outfits to wear.

Marcia Mae Jones is pregnant. Her boyfriend rushes home to marry her, but is killed on the road. Unable to talk about it with her parents, she goes to an abortionist.

It's a well-meaning exploitation picture that end with Joseph Crehan narrating a poorly drawn cartoon version of a woman's reproductive system. That pretty much sums up this movie: good intentions, bad execution, and they probably made a nice profit on it, four-walling the film to teenagers hoping for some dirty pictures and parents, like Miss Jnes' parents in this movie, too embarrassed to discuss these matters with their teenagers.

Looking at it seventy years later, the lines are banal, the actors are directed to speak to the camera when they are supposed to be talking to each other, and the sets indicate that as little money as possible was spent on the production.

The doggondest movie I've seen in years. From the title, I was expecting an exploitation cheapo where titillation is concealed in a public service wrapper, Elmer Clifton style. But no. Whatever else the flick is, it's sincere in its anti-abortion and non-marital sex message. But, oh my, what titillation there is is the grotesque kind the Army used to scare recruits away from vd risks. It's sex as anti-titillation.

The narrative itself starts out as a routine teen drama of the time. Middle-class Marcia Mae Jones is the embodiment of girlish innocence. Unfortunately, she gets romantically careless one night with her boyfriend and one thing leads to another. In the censored fashion of the time, her intercourse is conveyed by a dropped flower and her missed period by subtle innuendo. Now, being respectably middle-class, she and boyfriend must marry, except her intended is suddenly killed in a road accident. So now, what is Jones to do. She can't tell her parents who are wrapped up in their own concerns. So what else can she do given her class background but get an abortion and keep outward respectability.

Now, the 1948 movie's rather daring to this point, but not wildly so. But then, out of the blue, we're suddenly exposed to a lecture using clinical footage of live vaginal birth, a C-section, and the grotesque effects of syphilis on both male and female sex organs. I had to pinch myself that such visual explicitness would occur in what appeared to be a conventional Hollywood-type production. But there it is in all icky up-close detail.

To me, the question is where could this package with its x-rated material be shown, especially in Production Code, 1948. My guess is that the x-rated footage could be edited out for commercial neighborhood showing and then re-inserted for instances of special viewing. Because of shrewd storyline construction, I think this could be done without harm to the story or its emphatic anti-abortion message. However that may be, the sudden transition from teen angst to vaginal and penile close-ups is jarring, to say the least.

The production itself is quite competent for a low-budget indie. Jones is sweetly sympathetic in the lead and makes me wish I were her age again. Then too, Crehan, the authoritative voice of proper behavior, manages not to be too off-putting. My only complaint is with the abortionist who's made to look like the ultimate evil in an obvious effort at visual manipulation.

All in all, it's a strange flick impossible for me to rate, and unlike any I've seen in many years of movie watching. I just wish IMDB had more info about it. Anyway, catch up with this genuine oddity if you can, but be prepared, as reviewer Hafer puts it, for a heavy "yuck" factor.

Street Corner (1948)

** (out of 4)

Teenager Lois (Marcia Mae Jones) and her boyfriend have sex for the first time after his Senior Prom. She ends up pregnant but he's off at college and when he's on his way home he gets into a car crash and dies. Afraid to tell her parents Lois decides to go to an abortionist but things take a dark turn. I love watching these early exploitation films because, to get around the Hayes Office, producer's would present their films as educational subjects but then try to make a quick buck by adding in nudity, drug use, sex and various other no-no items that wouldn't be playing at most theaters. This film pretty much falls into that level as we get a pretty straight drama that takes a turn towards the end when the host of the film goes into detail about the "miracle of birth". As far as the actual film goes, the thing isn't too bad even though many scenes contain way too much dialogue and go on far too long. The film is pretty predictable and none of situations are fully explored as the goal is obvious and that's to get to the exploitation at the end. Jones actually isn't too bad in the role of the teenage and she had a pretty long career, which includes working with John Ford years before this picture. Joseph Crehan plays the doctor in the film and he too appeared in several high profile films including THE BIG SLEEP, THE BRUTE MAN and countless other films with the likes of Bogart, Tracy, Cagney and Karloff. The "exploitation" part of the film hits at the very end and lasts for nearly fifteen-minutes. We start off seeing a vaginal birth and then a C-section birth. These here will make one appreciate women and what they have to go through. We then turn to more disgusting stuff including seeing various men and women parts who have syphilis and gonorrhea. The film takes pleasure in showing what the diseases will do to a penis or vagina so be prepared to see some ugly sites. After this stuff we see the conclusion of the main film but I'm not sure who will care after these images. Fans of exploitation might want to check this out due to it being an early example of the subject but I'm sure most will want to stay away.