Kino Lorber Presents Forbidden Fruit: The Golden Age of the Exploitation Picture

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In the mid-1930s, when the Production Code tightened the leash on Hollywood’s Depression-era decadence, cagey entrepreneurs stepped in to fill the void, producing independent features on sub-Poverty Row budgets that fed audiences’ hunger for the illicit. While the Pre-Code films had demonstrated the art of nuance and the power of suggestion, exploitation films were ham-fisted exposés of a wide variety of hot-button issues, most frequently drug abuse and sex hygiene. By framing themselves as social problem films (almost always beginning with a lengthy title scroll stating their educational intent), exploitation films granted themselves a license to depict all the vices major studio films were forbidden to dramatize. Although vulgar by design and technically poor in execution, exploitation films occasionally surprise the viewer with moments of emotional poignance and a gleeful disregard for convention. In a period when independently-owned “Main Street” theaters were being choked out of business by the studio-owned theater chains, exploitation films provided a welcome injection of revenue, since these films could always be depended upon to attract a crowd, due to both the scandalous subject matter and the carnivalesque way in which they were promoted.

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  1. 1 -

    Mom and Dad

    1945 — a.k.a. A Family Story, in 1 top list Check
  2. 2 -

    Tell Your Children

    1936 — a.k.a. Reefer Madness, in 2 top lists Check
  3. 3 -

    Sex Madness

    1938, in 0 top lists Check
  4. 4 -

    Unashamed

    1938, in 0 top lists Check
  5. 5 -

    Elysia (Valley of the Nude)

    1933, in 0 top lists Check
  6. 6 -

    Marihuana

    1936, in 0 top lists Check
  7. 7 -

    Narcotic

    1933, in 0 top lists Check
  8. 8 -

    Tomorrow's Children

    1934 — a.k.a. The Unborn, in 0 top lists Check
  9. 9 -

    Child Bride

    1938, in 1 top list Check
  10. 10 -

    Wild Weed

    1949 — a.k.a. Marijuana, the Devil's Weed, in 0 top lists Check
  11. 11 -

    The Devil's Sleep

    1949, in 0 top lists Check
  12. 12 -

    Test Tube Babies

    1948, in 1 top list Check
  13. 13 -

    Guilty Parents

    1934, in 0 top lists Check
  14. 14 -

    Ingagi

    1930, in 0 top lists Check
  15. 15 -

    Lash of the Penitentes

    1936 — a.k.a. The Penitente Murder Case, in 0 top lists Check
  16. 16 -

    Der Arzt stellt fest...

    1966 — a.k.a. Wages of Sin, in 0 top lists
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  17. 17 -

    Girl Gang

    1954, in 0 top lists Check
  18. 18 -

    Racket Girls

    1951 — a.k.a. Blonde Pickup, in 0 top lists Check
  19. 19 -

    Peek-a-Boo

    1953, in 0 top lists Check
  20. 20 -

    'B' Girl Rhapsody

    1952, in 0 top lists Check
  21. 21 -

    Damaged Lives

    1933, in 0 top lists Check
  22. 22 -

    Damaged Goods

    1937, in 0 top lists Check
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Last updated on Sep 27, 2022 by mcmakattack; source