Censoring Exploitation Cinema and Roadshow Attractions in the Production Code Era
The Many Lives of Kroger Babb’s Early Ventures
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 21798144 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Claire Dutriaux |
| Year | 2025 |
| Volume | 1 |
| Publication date | 2025-01-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Transatlantica (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1765-2766 • E-ISSN: 1765-2766 |
| Publisher | OpenEdition (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.4000/14b8m |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 13 |
Hollywood films could not be shown in studio-owned or affiliated theaters if the movies did not obtain a Production Code seal. Such films would be barred from showing in studio-owned theaters and affiliated chains. Exploitation cinema relied on the sensational and the spectacular, often resorting to depictions of sex stories, childbirth, illicit affairs, venereal diseases, or the consumption of drugs—which the Production Code Administration (PCA) disapproved of and justified why such films could not get Code seals. Exploitation producers usually disregarded the Code entirely, and sought to show their movies in rural or independent houses instead. Child Bride (1941) and Dust to Dust (1938) were among the most controversial exploitation films in the 1940s, because of their subject material, but also because of producer Kroger Babb’s clever marketing techniques. Child Bride was intended to serve as a pamphlet against child marriage in the Ozarks, and Dust to Dust focused on teenage pregnancies. Both were the subject of battles involving Catholic and Protestant groups, local censorship boards, women’s clubs, parent teacher associations, and medical associations. This paper examines the reception of these two films through the prism of censorship battles, and how the producers of the movies devised clever strategies to circumvent the fact that they could not get Code seals—acting as traveling salesmen, touring U.S. cities, renaming the movies, and showing the films in the independent circuit. The exhibition and reception histories of Child Bride and Dust to Dust interrogate the effectiveness of the film censorship systems (the PCA and the local boards), which seemed quite powerless to stop those films from showing in urban and rural theaters
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |