Sex Madness (film #131 on Feature Films). [Category: Sleaze & Outsider]

This is more of a soap opera than an exploitation film. Small-town girl Millie wins a beauty contest and gets to go to New York City, leaving her fiancé Wendell behind at home. After the contest is over, she has stars in her eyes and tries to Make It Big. Unfortunately, she quickly lands on the street with no job, no money, and no prospects, so she falls for the pitch of a “theatrical agent,” lands on the casting couch, and ends up with syphilis. Now she can’t go home and marry Wendell, so she must drown her sorrows in her job as a chorus girl in a burlesque show. Fortunately, a kindly doctor puts her in the hospital and gives her effective treatments for the disease. Eventually, she is well enough to go home, but under strict orders to continue the treatments with a doctor at home and not marry Wendell until she is completely cured. She follows doctor’s orders, going to a neighboring town for the treatments and keeping her condition a secret from her family and Wendell. But when Wendell pressures her to get married, she falls for the pitch of a quack doctor who promises to cure her in 30 days. She marries Wendell, and they have a baby, but soon the baby gets desperately ill, and Wendell discovers he doesn’t see too good anymore. What’s a poor girl to do? There is plenty of tear-jerking and scenery-chewing in this film, as well as uniformly bad acting, bottom-of-the-barrel production values, lots of preaching about the evils of “social diseases,” a silly “ironic” subplot involving the son of the local anti-sex crusader coming down with syphilis (d’oh!!), and a couple of creepy moments where lesbianism and child molestation are hinted at in leering ways. Mostly, though, this is a real weeper, lacking the energy of Reefer Madness or the goofiness of Assassin of Youth, but making up for it in preachiness.

Ratings: Camp/Humor Value: *****. Weirdness: ****. Historical Interest: *****. Overall Rating: ****.