On the cusp of the sexual revolution of the 1960s, the generation that had fought in World War II struggled to find ways to discuss sex with their children. Paranoia about the expanding pornography industry and the spread of venereal disease only added to the confusion. These four films take us back to a different time, when sex was a four-letter word.
PERVERSION FOR PROFIT (1965): Produced by "Citizens for Decent Literature, Inc.", this remarkable film warns audiences that exposing children to adult magazines will inevitably turn them into "homosexuals, lesbians, sadists, masochists, and other sex deviants." The best way for the filmmakers to illustrate this, of course, is to show graphic close-ups of the pictures in said magazines. Histrionic host George Putnam not only connects pornography with communism, but with the fall of ancient Greece, Egypt, and Rome, while peppering his conversation with Ed Wood-ian non-sequiturs such as "very few blind people join the nudist colonies." The film was financed by Charles Keating, who was later the center of a $3 billion junk bond scandal and sentenced to prison in 1989. Putnam was a longtime newsman in the Los Angeles area, and Ted Knight's basis for the character of Ted Baxter on The Mary Tyler Moore Show (1970-1977).
PRINTED POISON (1965): Worried about the damage he might do to the children of their otherwise upstanding community, two crusading attorneys put a "smut peddler" behind bars. Starring Anthony Eisley (Hawaiian Eye), John Doucette (Patton), and Alan Reed (the voice of Fred Flintstone).
DANCE, LITTLE CHILDREN (1961): Lynn, a naive teenager, contracts syphilis after letting her boyfriend go all the way on the first date. Herk Harvey, best known for his stylish horror film Carnival of Souls (which would be released the following year) directs and appears as a negligent parent.
PARENT TO CHILD ABOUT SEX (1966): From the confines of their easy chairs, doctors Stuart M. Finch and Tommy N. Evans inform parents that it's OK if their children touch themselves. While the medical professionals awkwardly read from cue cards, some of the child actors may enjoy their parts a bit too much.