The only film the cast and crew of Mystery Science Theater 3000 (1988) refused to satirize after watching. During an interview, host Michael J. Nelson revealed that the crew considered the film "disturbing." In a separate interview with Frank Conniff, who selected films for the show, he cited it as the worst film he had watched as a potential selection for the show.
A problem cropped up when planning the infamous "skinny dipping" scene. Shirley Mills had no problem stripping naked for it, even with the large male crew watching, but she did not know how to swim. The crew found a local 13-year old girl, Bernice Stobaugh, willing to swim naked to double for Mills in the long shots. Stobaugh looked different enough from Mills that her pubic hair had to be shaved for the scene. It is Stobaugh who does the dive into the pond and does the graceful swimming in the long shots. In the closer shots, Mills is seen doing the dog paddle. Stobaugh was reportedly so relaxed being naked that she'd wander around that way while the crew set up new shots. Someone tried to get her to put on a robe, but she refused.
Although it was released in 1938, Shirley Mills did not see the complete film until the 1980s when a relative gave her a videocassette of it. Even though she appeared in several films during her career, including some classics, she always said she was most proud of Child Bride because it focused on real problems.
By the '60s, Child Bride's underage skinny dipping scene left to its brief screening in the grindhouses of San Francisco as an adults-only film. Bernice Stobaugh Ray, Shirley's swimming-double and life-long Christian, heard about that and says she was in a meeting of church women one afternoon in the 1980s when the pastor tried to begin a discussion by asking if any of them had ever one anything outrageous. Bernice raised her hand and said, "I was the double for an actress in a porno film once!" There was an uneasy silence, and the preacher switched the topic.