In the 1930s, many of the urban theaters that would later deteriorate into grind houses were still in their heyday, while former vaudeville palaces were being converted into movie houses. Early in the decade, at the beginning of the sound era, Hollywood pumped out movies drenched with sex and violence, so much so that the forces of repression created a backlash that forced the movie industry to seriously police itself for the first time. As a result, movies grew tamer and an opportunity was created for men with no regard for the morals of the nation.

Dubbed “The Forty Thieves” a loose collection of former carnies and movie industry low lifes hit the highways of America to fill the sleaze vacuum. A number of low budget quickies like “The Cocaine Fiends” or “Sex Madness” were ground out, to go along with movies that had been made legitimately but were rejected by Hollywood as too controversial, like “Freaks” or “Ecstasy” (which featured future star Hedy Lamarr running around in the buff).

All of the road show cheapies featured the same plot: (Innocent teenagers/naïve country girls/bored housewives) are lured into (drug use/gambling/prostitution) by greasy criminal operators with pencil thin mustaches and wind up (insane/dead/infected/safely married) thereby providing a warning to America. Along the way, the women frequently change into and out of their underwear or scanty nighties, and are sometimes convinced to shed it all to go skinny-dipping.

These operators would send an advance man ahead to place advertising and whip the natives into a frenzy of anticipation, roll into town for a day or two, show a few runs of their product, collect the cash and move on before the authorities caught up to them. If they thought they could get away with it, they might splice in a few minutes of footage of a live birth, clips of genitals infected with syphilis, or scenes with fleeting nudity. Otherwise, the rubes got the “clean” version which still contained more sex or violence than Hollywood was providing at the time.

Many of the performances were billed as “Hygiene Movies.” Along with the movie, you got a former carnival barker posing as a doctor, who promised all would be revealed and presented the movie as a high-minded effort at sex education. Oh and by the way, if you craved further enlightenment, why they just happened to have a little booklet for sale in the lobby that provided lots more juicy details.

Sometimes there were three shows: one for the women, one for men, and then, after midnight, the special “Adults Only” viewing. Sometimes there were no differences between any of the showings; sometimes the special footage was inserted after midnight.

This sort of operation was still going strong into the 1960s, until competition from grind houses and increasingly permissive Hollywood or foreign films proved too strong. Along the way, the product expanded with Atrocity films (post WW2 cheapies featuring newsreel footage of concentration camps and battlefield gore), Striptease movies, and Goona-Goona movies (jungle films featuring real footage of topless natives or faked shots of non-white actresses).

Many of these early exploitation films are still available on DVD. (Either on the “Cult Movies” box set or from the fine people at Something Weird video) Some of them are fairly hard to watch today, given the fact that they are less revealing than a Victoria Secret fashion show, badly made, and missing the really dirty bits. But I do have a few favorites:

Gambling with Souls and Slaves in Bondage - Two films from the 1930s from producer J.D. Kendis, these two nearly identical movies don’t mess around, going right straight for the panties and sleaze. Most of the women are fairly attractive, the villains are oily, and pointless burlesque routines pad things out.

Reefer Madness - Who has seen this one? Who hasn’t seen this one high? This movie is so over the top that you wonder if the producers were having a joke on the straights back in the day - except it was financed by a church group. Not so much sex, but wonderful scenes of degenerates puffing away at reefers and going totally nuts.

Maniac - If you are fan of Ed Wood and hilarious shitty movies in general, this messterpiece from “Forty Thief” Dwaine Esper is required viewing. A mad scientist, complete with a bad wig and fake beard, rants in a ridiculous Lugosi accent with some of the worst dialogue ever, while slutty women are undressed and engage in catfights. It’s impossible to convey just how much shitty movie golden insanity is packed into this one film, except to say one highlight involves cat eye eating.

Along with just enjoying them for ironic amusement, a few viewings of vintage road show movies reinforce how little has changed in eighty years. Early full-length porn movies were glorified hygiene movies, complete with a fake doctor. Made for TV movies, for decades, repeated the corrupted innocence/sad consequences/a warning to parents plotline. Slasher movies, teen angst films, and reality TV all can trace influences straight back to the days of scratchy celluloid offering glimpses of the forbidden to deprived rubes.

The one constant throughout the years? We all want the really dirty stuff.