If Sex Madness is to be believed – and hey, why not, given that it was to social diseases what Ed Wood’s Glen or Glenda? was to the plight of cross-dressers – the greatest threat facing the United States in the 1930’s wasn’t Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan, or even Communism, but rather the previously unmentionable blight of syphilis. Herpes, hell, that was child’s play back in the day, and gonorrhea, while unfortunate, was almost a badge of honor in some quarters. But syphilis, well, that was all but an unpardonable sin; worse, even, than cancer, as the Big C could still leave your innocence intact. Based on the newspaper headlines alone – and Sex Madness is awash in them during its here-and-it’s-gone 52-minute running time – you’d think Americans did little else but get up, eat breakfast, and contract the disease. Director Dwain Esper certainly makes a strong case.
As Esper’s follow-up Marihuana (1936) would prove, the man, while supremely earnest and burdened with the heavy cross of social awareness, was also certifiably insane. Still, despite his insistence that pot and STD’s put the world in the crosshairs more than Hitler himself, he did manage to secure the $22.50 to make this movie, and for that he deserves at least a round of polite applause. Sure, at this late date, the film’s photography is more akin to a static feed and the dialogue all but incomprehensible at a volume anything less than a deafening roar, but at some point in the past, it played as a crisp testament to one man’s vision of the future. Either we battle syphilis now, or wait until half the country is bedridden, blind, and covered in sores.
Give Sex Madness its due: in less than an hour, it tells a complete story from start to finish, building a character arc from naivete to suicidal despair, all while the actors on display seem determined to never rise above a monotone. Not a single line is delivered with conviction, and several, including a concerned father late in the film, so blatantly read from cue cards, it might have been the cheekier move to simply have the actors hold the script itself, hiding nothing. It plays as a PSA anyway, so why not go all the way?
Sure, we know that when bored secretaries talk of moving to the big city, they will be stalked, captured, and infected in turn, but what we didn’t allow for is how willingly they’d go to their doom. Whatever Esper is, he’s no feminist. So yes, the female characters of Sex Madness are 100% to blame for their predicaments. They fuck easily, readily, and with a minimum of commitment. A man with a mustache saying hello is more than enough, and before we can blink, there’s a sex party afoot, where it’s understood that every single man present has syphilis. So our plucky young heroine is afflicted, and dammit all, just as she’s falling in love and wanting to start a family. But once is more than enough, and Esper’s message is clear: if you dare lose your virginity outside the confines of marriage, you’re asking for it. And that’s what you get for working outside the home.
The cruelest part of Sex Madness (outside of its production values) is that even when our poor saps seek comfort and aid for their disease, they do little but run into more conmen. One such huckster, a man so disingenuous he makes Groucho Marx seem sincere, bleeds his customers dry, all the while promising immediate relief. Only his immediate means a minimum of one year of a “treatment” more akin to bed rest and a stern lecture during office hours. Naturally, no one is cured, but one woman is so confident she has been cured, she gets married and has a baby. Within hours, the baby is at death’s door, filled to the brim with that dreaded STD. As for the husband, he quickly lapses into a near-coma, which forces his wife to poison a pair of drinks to end the pain. Hell, the baby is a goner regardless, but why should we suffer?
Just in the nick of time, a phone call brings our heroine back from the brink. Her friend has been cured! After many years and thousands of dollars, she finally located an ethical doctor who actually uses modern medicine. She’ll live, thankfully, as will our desperate pair. Once again, the baby is presumed dead, because he’s never seen again. Oh well, that’s life in the big city. Maybe next time, you’ll get tested first.
Needless to say, there’s no real purpose to watching bumbling ineptitude like Sex Madness. Bereft of joy, entertainment value, or even the pleasure one derives from a camp classic, it is nevertheless a vital social document. Dull as dishwater, but vital. Here’s what concerned one particular man in 1934, and surely he wasn’t alone. Though devoid of talent, or even the ability to put together a coherent scene, he had passion. And that, my friends, has always been enough to flood the marketplace with ideas. Bad ideas, mostly, but ideas nonetheless. Depression and war were for the other guys. Here, the hell hath wrought by loose women was what threatened Western Civilization, and who’s to say he’s wrong? If I’ve learned anything from my studies, it’s that all the real trouble started after we ratified the 19th Amendment.
According to something I pulled up on Google, nearly 1 in 10 Americans had syphilis during the 1930’s. Sure, Sex Madness had us thinking it was closer to 9 in 10, but wild exaggeration is no vice if it’s done out of love. Had the disease continued unabated, there’s not a chance in hell we would have been ready to answer Pearl Harbor. As for Europe, over and out. I have no insight into Esper’s sex life (I assume it’s perverted and utterly depressing) but here’s a moralistic little prig who had our best interests at heart. He saw a problem and rather than offer a solution, he chose to wag his finger and ask the country to bring back unrelenting shame as a tool of social control. Not much, but we’ll take it.
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