Damaged Lives

Damaged Lives (1933)

* 1/2 (out of 4)

A year before directing the first team up between Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi in The Black Cat, director Edgar G. Ulmer made this cheapie warning film. A man goes out and sleeps with a city girl, goes back home and marries his sweetheart but soon learns the city girl had syphilis. This isn't as silly as most of these warning films but the over-dramatic nature still doesn't work. The film drags on even though it lasts just over an hour. When it comes to these warning films I think the more camp the better and this one here is just too straight to keep it entertaining.

Lyman Williams is engaged to Diane Sinclair, but it's to be a June wedding, so he goes home with Charlotte Merriam and goes offstage behind a closed door, leaving his jacket on top of her wrap. Now that he's a man, he's not interested in Contract Bridge, so he and Miss Sinclair elope. However, when Doctor Jason Robards Sr. summons him to Doctor Murray Kinnel's clinic, he gets a freak show of people suffering from.... an infectious disease. It will be two years' worth of treatment for Williams and the missus, but the baby will be all right, because that's what happens when you leave your jacket on a woman's wrap. Men Beware!

It's Edgar G. Ulmer's first film as director (not counting being one of several of PEOPLE ON SUNDAY). Up to then, hs day job had been set designer for people like Max Reinhardt and Cecil B. Demille, and the set design on this movie is great. When it comes to dialogue, it's somewhere between coyly banal and puerile, and the acting.... well Robards is good, but I don't know how he wound up being in this movie.

It's an exploitation movie that tries desperately to have it both ways: cover a worrisome public health issue like gonorrhea and syphilis before the Production Code clamps down, but not show or say anything that could upset anyone. The result is a stupid and annoying movie.

This is a typical early 1930s film warning about the dangers of unprotected sex and the diseases one can contract. The film was directed by Dwain Esper, who made several films in this drama. The film involves a young executive, with an important job and a long term girlfriend. His boss insists that he go out with him to a party and while out at the party he sleeps with a young wealthy woman, and contracts syphilis from her. The girl is so upset that she commits suicide. He is convinced to go to a doctor (played by Jason Robards, father of Jason Robards Jr) who displays poor people suffering from various infectious diseases. The young executive (who out of guilt has married his girlfriend, is upset when he finds out that his wife has syphilis too and that their baby might be infected. The wife, in a state of depression tries to kill herself, and her husband by opening the gas jets on the stove. There is a happy ending though.

The film is entertaining, and not quite as glum as it sounds. Played out in beautiful art deco sets, and with above par acting for this type of film, this public domain film, available in VHS and DVD is worth seeing if only for its risqué subject matter.

This was produced by Harry Cohn's brother Nat at Columbia Pictures but released under the Weldon Pictures banner to provide some distance for the parent company. Workaholic Don Bradley Jr. (Lyman Williams) agrees to go to a nightclub dinner party where he meets bottle-blonde Elise (Charlotte Merriam). The two have a wild night of drinking and end up in the sack. Don feels guilty since he's engaged to marry nice girl Joan (Diane Sinclair), and the two decide to elope. Imagine Don's embarrassment when Elise contacts him some time later to inform him that she's tested positive for syphilis. Don hides his secret shame, but has he already passed it on to dear sweet Joan? Also featuring Jason Robards Sr. And Marceline Day.

This has all of the hallmarks of later films of the type: nice people brought to near ruin after a night's careless debauchery; a positive outlook after mostly doom and gloom; and a protracted sequence showing real cases of advanced venereal disease patients in all of their grotesque horror. The copy I watched ran a scant 53 minutes, but IMDb lists it as having a 64 minute run time, and another source lists 74 minutes, so most likely it depends on how much of the really graphic footage was cut from each print. This was produced in conjunction with the Canadian Social Health Council, and marked the ignominious American directing debut of Edgar G. Ulmer. He manages to add a couple of interesting visual touches that raise this above the crowd, but just barely.

An extramarital affair leads to a young couple contracting venereal disease.

The Alpha Video presentation is very poor, with a grainy picture, frames that jump and sound that cuts out at times at at others is just not clear.

If anyone deems it worthy, this film should be cleaned up. Granted, it is not particularly interesting or even salacious, but an improved picture and sound would at least make it watchable.

The film is available in sets with "Reefer Madness", but do not be confused -- it is not in the same league. This one is not even unintentionally funny. It is just sad.