The 1938 film Sex Madness starts out with a title crawl that informs us “Humanity must be enlightened! Ignorance must be abolished! They must be told!” So, in other words, Sex Madness is yet another exploitation film that’s been disguised as an educational film.
Sex Madness tells the story of a group of people who have been driven mad by the sexually themed dancing at the local burlesque house. Two secretaries sit in the audience and one starts to grope the other. A man leaves the theater and promptly murder a young woman as she walks home with her groceries. A group of tuxedo-clad frat boys go to a party with the dancers and they all end up coming down with syphilis as a result.
Finally, dancer Millicent (Vivian McGill) discovers that, as a result of a trip to the casting couch, she has contracted syphilis herself. Her doctor explains that, if she gets the proper treatment, she can be cured. However, it will require that she be patient and that she resist the temptation to go to any charlatan doctors.
So, of course, Millicent returns home from the big city and promptly gives into temptation and tries to buy a miracle cure from a charlatan doctor…
I’m probably making Sex Madness sound a lot more entertaining than it actually is. The film was directed by Dwain Esper, who directed several similar films in the 30s. Sex Madness is never quite as demented as Maniac, Esper’s best known film, but it’s still a bit more histrionic than Damaged Lives. You can tell that this is an Esper film because it follows his usual “the worst than can happen will happen” aesthetic. In the world of Esper’s films, going to a burlesque show leads not only to syphilis. It leads to murder as well.
(What makes the murder particularly jarring is the fact that it’s so casually introduced and then, just as casually, forgotten.)
The other way that you can tell that this is an Esper film is because it appears to have been edited with a chainsaw. Scenes pop up almost randomly and the film’s use of stock footage makes Gambling With Souls appear to be subtle and carefully constructed.
In the end, Sex Madness is mostly distinguished by its exploitation-perfect name. That said, it is a time capsule of the era in which it was made and, if you’re a cinematic history nerd like me, you’ll be able to enjoy it on that level. Sex Madness is in the public domain and it can be watched below.
Through the Shattered Lens 