Child Bride (1938)

Director:

Harry Revier

Writer:

Harry Revier (story)

Release Date:

1938 (USA)

Genre:

Drama

Tagline:

A THROBBING DRAMA OF SHACKLED YOUTH! (original 1938 one-sheet poster)

Plot:

Schoolteacher in a rural community campaigns to stop the practice of older men marrying young, underage girls. |

Plot Keywords:

Underage | Innocence | Flogging | Mud | Goat

Cast

Shirley Mills	...	Jennie
Bob Bollinger	...	Freddie
Warner Richmond	...	Jake Bolby
Diana Durrell	...	Miss Carol
Dorothy Carrol	...	Ma Colton
George Humphreys	...	Ira Colton
Frank Martin	...	Charles
George Morrell	...	Mike Nulty (as Rex Baxter)
Angelo Rossitto	...	Angelo (as Don Barrett)
Al Bannon	...	Happy

Also Known As:

Child Bride of the Ozarks
Child Brides (USA) (reissue title)
Dust to Dust (USA) (reissue title)

Runtime:

62 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Canada:PG (Ontario) | Sweden:(Banned)

Filming Locations:

Sonora, California, USA

Trivia:

Producer Kroger Babb and his wife Mildred Horn met while he was distributing this film under the title 'Dust to Dust'. Years later, Mildred recalled the film warmly as "the most atrocious thing I ever saw".

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Sex at 24 Frames Per Second (2003) (V)

The little girl might have gone on to become a radical feminist!

I screened CHILD BRIDE (1938) yesterday, and was especially taken with how bitchy Shirley Mill's character was to the poor little playmate boy who went swimming with her during the famous swimming scene.

Shirley's character had really bought into the unpleasant, busy-body mentality of the "social reformer" school teacher, it seems.

The poor guy Shirley forbade to go swimming with her is virtually trembling as he hands Shirley her clothes after she emerges from the water, with Shirley shrieking at him very unattractively.

Pretty little 12 girl on her way to becoming a big time puritan, it appears....just like her school teacher role model.

The little girl might have gone on to become a radical feminist! Who can say?

Anyway, I felt sorry for the poor little boy in the swimming scene, badly treated by the unfriendly character (right before the actual swimming starts) as portrayed by Shirley.

Another "take" on that famous scene, FYI.

BTW, I noticed how similar the set up of the swimming scene, Shirley running through the woods, was to the famous ECSTASY (1934) foreign movie starring Hedy Lamar was.....the running nude girl is sort of like a vulnerable animal hiding behind trees while running, noticeably nervous (or that seems the mentality of the scene).

Both "nude" scenes are quite harmless and innocuous by today's (2009) standards....much more graphic female nude scenes are routinely shown on network and cable TV with no warning to children or others....normal stuff in today's much less puritanical world, if seems.

David Allen (aka "Tex Allen," SAG Retired movie actor name), [e-mail]