{{short description|1933 film}} {{Use dmy dates|date=March 2020}} {{Infobox film | name = Damaged Lives
| image = Damaged Lives FilmPoster.jpeg | caption = | director = [[Edgar G. Ulmer]] | producer = [[J. J. Allen]] (producer)<br>[[Maxwell Cohn]] (producer)<br>[[Nat Cohn]] (producer) | based_on = {{based on|play ''[[Les Avariés]]'' |[[Eugène Brieux]] (uncredited)}} | writer = [[Edgar G. Ulmer]] (screenplay) <br> [[Donald Davis (writer)|Donald Davis]] (dialog) | narrator = | starring = See below | music = | cinematography = [[Allen G. Siegler]] | editing = [[Otto Meyer (film editor)|Otto Meyer]] | studio = Weldon Pictures Corporation | distributor = Weldon Pictures ([[Columbia Pictures]]) | released = {{Film date|1933|05|22|Toronto, Ontario|1933|08|19|London, England|1933|09|15|Boston, Massachusetts|df=y}} | runtime = 61 minutes | country = Canada<br>United States | language = English | budget = $18,000<ref name="Schaefer">{{cite book|last=Schaefer|first=Eric|authorlink=Eric Schaefer|title="Bold! Daring! Shocking! True!": A History of Exploitation Films, 1919–1959|publisher=Duke University Press|year=1999|pages=180, 419|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=CSBZqe0zPaMC|isbn=0-8223-2374-5}}</ref> }}
'''''Damaged Lives''''' is a 1933 Canadian/American [[Pre-Code Hollywood|pre-Code]] [[exploitation film]] directed by [[Edgar G. Ulmer]].<ref>{{AFI film|id=3054|title=Damaged Lives}}.</ref> The screenplay is based on the French play ''[[Les Avariés]]'' (1901) by [[Eugène Brieux]].<ref name="Bogdanovich">Bogdanovich, Peter (1997) {{worldcat|oclc=758067070|name=''Who the Devil made it : conversations with Robert Aldrich, George Cukor, Allan Dwan, Howard Hawks, Alfred Hitchcock, Chuck Jones, Fritz Lang, Joseph H. Lewis, Sidney Lumet, Leo McCarey, Otto Preminger, Don Siegel, Josef von Sternberg, Frank Tashlin, Edgar G. Ulmer, Raoul Walsh''}} (New York: Knopf) {{ISBN|978-0-3454-0457-2}}</ref>
The film was shot at [[General Service Studios]], Hollywood, California for the Canadian Social Health Council and premiered in Toronto, Ontario.<ref>Rist, Peter (2001). ''Guide to the Cinema(s) of Canada'' (Westport, Conn., and London: Greenwood Press), p. 77. {{ISBN|0-313-29931-5}}.</ref>
''Damaged Lives'' was initially released in Canada and a few cities in the United States but screenings were blocked by censors in most American towns. In 1937, the film was re-released as ''The Shocking Truth'' with a 29-minute supplementary lecture on VD added onto the end of the film to satisfy censors. Most current video releases do not include this extra material.{{citation needed|date=December 2024}}
==Plot== The film hinges on a casual sexual encounter.
A boss insists that a young executive, with an important job and a long-term girlfriend, go out for the evening with an important client. They go to a swank party, where he meets the businessman's escort. Their personalities connect, and after the businessman leaves with another woman, they leave together and have a casual sexual encounter. The next day, the executive proposes to his girlfriend, they marry, and she becomes pregnant. The escort subsequently learns that she has syphilis from the businessman and summons the executive. She informs him of the situation, then kills herself.
Later, a medical exam on the wife reveals that her unborn child has syphilis, indicating that one or both of the parents are syphilitic. The executive reveals that he passed it on from the escort. Their friends, while supportive, now want to avoid physical contact with the pair. The distraught wife then tries to kill herself and her husband, thinking that they could never live a normal life.
The husband tries to console his wife...explaining how treatments are available and that they can be cured. When another friend calls the wife to say she also has syphilis and her worries are so trivial, the wife finally realizes she will be all right.
==Cast== {{Cast listing| *Diane Sinclair as Joan Bradley *Lyman Williams as Donald Bradley Jr. *[[Harry Myers]] as Nat Franklin *[[Marceline Day]] as Laura Hall *[[Jason Robards Sr.]] as Dr. Bill Hall *[[Charlotte Merriam]] as Elise Cooper *[[Murray Kinnell]] as Dr. Vincent Leonard *[[George Irving (American actor)|George Irving]] as Donald Bradley Sr. *[[Cecilia Parker]] as Rosie *[[Almeda Fowler]] as Mrs. Bradley }} [[File:Roxy-theater-knoxville-1941-tn1.jpg|thumb|300px|right|The Roxy Theater in [[Knoxville, Tennessee]], showing the film in 1941 on a "adults only" basis.]]
==Production== Filmed in 1933, this cautionary tale was distributed under the name Weldon Pictures, because Columbia did not want to be associated with the topic of the film.<ref name="Bogdanovich" /> The end title of the [[Internet Archive]] print says the film was an [[Educational Film Exchanges, Inc.]] release.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://archive.org/details/Damaged_Lives |title=Damaged Lives |publisher=Internet Archive |access-date=15 August 2016}}</ref>
Although some scenes in the film were cut by [[Film censorship in the United States|state film censor boards]] in [[Maryland State Board of Censors|Maryland]] and [[Ohio]], it was still very popular in the United States.<ref name="Schaefer"/> For example, in [[Baltimore]] 65,000 people saw the film, representing approximately 10% of the population.<ref name="Schaefer"/>
''Damaged Lives'' was distributed in Britain through the [[British Social Hygiene Council]] (BSHC), which claimed a total viewership of around four million people between August 1933 and May 1934. The BSHC also claimed to have distributed more than 126,000 pamphlets to audience members with information on syphilis treatment.<ref name=Boon/>
==References== <references>
<ref name=Boon>{{cite book |title=Health Education Films in the Twentieth Century |editor-last1=Bonah|editor-first1=Christian|editor-last2=Cantor|editor-first2=David|editor-last3=Anja Laukötter|editor-first3=Anja |chapter=Truffle Hunters and Parachutists |last=Boon|first=Tim |year=2018 |publisher=University of Rochester Press |isbn=978-1-58046-916-6 }}</ref>
</references>
==External links== *{{IMDb title|id=0028755|title=Damaged Lives}} *{{Internet Archive film|id=Damaged_Lives|name=Damaged Lives}}
{{Les Avariés}} {{Edgar G. Ulmer}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Damaged Lives}} [[Category:1933 films]] [[Category:1933 English-language films]] [[Category:1933 drama films]] [[Category:American films based on plays]] [[Category:Films directed by Edgar G. Ulmer]] [[Category:American black-and-white films]] [[Category:Films about syphilis]] [[Category:American drama films]] [[Category:Canadian drama films]] [[Category:English-language Canadian films]] [[Category:Canadian black-and-white films]] [[Category:Films shot in California]] [[Category:1933 American films]] [[Category:1930s Canadian films]] [[Category:Films based on works by Eugène Brieux]] [[Category:English-language drama films]]