‘Sex Madness’: The weirdest moral panic movie of all time
Every generation seems obligated to have either a movie or a subgenre that strikes moral panic into the hearts of those who oppose, whether it’s the infamous ‘Video Nasty‘ era that saw pearls clutched at the prospect of horror or the ‘Satanic Panic’ of the 1980s. One of the most famous is 1936’s Reefer Madness, but not enough love gets shown towards its spiritual sequel, Sex Madness.
Released two years later and operating under the same assumption that ridiculously low production values and societal buzzwords would turn an entire generation away from the mere concept of copulation, it ended up experiencing much the same after-effects as its predecessor. Whether it’s reefer or sex, a 1930s exploitation flick with ‘Madness’ in the title is nailed on to become a cult classic.
The plot follows Vivian McGill’s Millicent Hamilton, a beauty queen who sets out on the adventure of a lifetime to New York City with big dreams of becoming a world-renowned model. Unfortunately for her, a spanner is thrown into the works when she ends up with syphilis, forcing her to choose between an extensive treatment of therapies to rid her of her ailment or a so-called miracle cure.
Of course, it should be noted that there was a precedent for Sex Madness to exist, considering that syphilis did run fairly rampant throughout the younger generations at the time, but it would also be fair to say that the scare tactics repeatedly used throughout its 57-minute running time may not have had the desired effect, considering that it either explicitly showcases or nods towards certain taboos.
Getting a pass from the Motion Picture Production Code for positioning itself as an educational film, Sex Madness skirted the guidelines to boast burlesque shows, premarital sex, the prospect of orgies, scantily-clad women, a cast of characters driven by their desire to bump uglies above all else, and the attempted seduction of secretary Betty by her lesbian co-worker Peggy.
Poor Millicent isn’t even the only person stricken by syphilis, either, with dancer Linda Lee Hill’s dancer Sheila Lane also falling foul of what are described as “societal diseases”. There’s shaming, scare-mongering, and repeated pointing of fingers amongst the pseudo-science and catch-all cures, creating a tone and message that’s difficult to figure out even when watched through a modern lens almost a century on.
Attempting to frame itself as a documentary but quite clearly heavily indebted to propaganda more than anything else, it would be safe to say Sex Madness did not have the desired effect and swear its target demographic off the idea of wanton copulation. It’s part of the public domain now, too, which means an entirely new audience can discover its distinctly old-fashioned charms – or lack thereof – for themselves.
