Monday, October 19, 2009

Adults Only! - The Road to Ruin (1934)

The clock chimes midnight, and the projector clatters to life: welcome to the first edition of Adults Only!, a look into some exploitation films of the 1930s and 40s. No ratings - how can you rate these gems? - but insanely fun to watch.



It was so nice, she played it twice: Helen Foster reprises her role from the 1928 version as Ann, a sweet young thing corrupted by sex, drugs, and fast living. The typical cautionary film pattern applies: innocent is lured, by degrees, away from her sanitized lifestyle...eventually to end up sick, injured, eaten by aardvarks, what have you. In poor Ann's case, she dies lamenting her trek down the - you guessed it - Road to Ruin.

As with all warning pictures, you come away thinking "Boy, I really want to be friends with those people!" Probably not what the distributors had in mind. One frustrating thing was the glaring absence of a reel towards the end...though you get enough in context to figure it out for yourself.

Scorecard: drugs, smoking, sex, VD, abortion, alcohol

7 comments:

Kate said...

This movie is one of my guilty pleasures- it's so much fun to watch!! It always annoys me a little, though, that even the exploitation films had to put a "don't do this or look what will happen to you!" moral ending in the picture.

Avalon76 said...

But Kate, they wouldn't want you to have *too* much fun, would they? *laughs*

I literally watched the whole thing going "IWANTHERDRESSOHLOOKATHERHAIRIWANTTOSKINNYDIPWITHTHEM" =D

Lolita Kane said...

Haha wow! I must see it! I look forward to more of these posts! Quel bonheur!

Elsie said...

I agree, you can't really rate these sorts of movies! I love them regardless. Most recently I saw this one:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0040842/

Recommended (if you haven't already seen it, of course)!

Avalon76 said...

Elsie - I haven't seen that one yet! Must add it to my list. =D

Rose of Sharon said...

Wow! It sounds risqué! Where do you get your hands on these old movies? Hope you're having a great weekend!

Avalon76 said...

Sharon: I was lucky and found a DVD set at Kmart. ^_^ But a lot of times you can find these in dollar stores and other discount places - you just have to look!