Ulmer's first U. S. film has been classified as an exploitation cheapie a la "Reefer Madness," but despite the sensational subject matter (VD), some brief grisly medical footage, and a supposed budget of about $15,000, it looks like the figurative million bucks. Part of that can be attributed to the director's ability to get the maximum amount of style and production value from minimal resources, as his later career proved over and over. But quite likely those resources weren't quite so minimal after all: In truth "Damaged Lives" was made by Columbia, no doubt making full use of first-rate crew, elaborate sets, et al. From its higher-profile productions. There is nothing cheap about it, and the performers are also a definite cut above what you'd find in an actual tent-show exploitation pic of the era. Although that's how it was released--the studio decided it was too embarrassed to release this drama about a taboo issue under its own name, so it created a fake distribution arm and basically let it play the same kinds of gigs as "Reefer," "Mom and Dad," and other shocking "adults only" titles.

So anyway, that explains why this is a very glossy film for a supposed Poverty Row enterprise. Ulmer is terrifically assured already as a filmmaker, and if the script is not exactly sophisticated, he nonetheless manages a significant feat in getting pretty good performances from actors despite the feeble lines they have to deliver. Short as it is, though, the movie starts to plod when it gets to the horrible-consequences-of-sin part, with the last few scenes' really dragging pacewise. As nicely done as it all is, there still isn't enough depth or weight to ballast the eventual gloom, and of course it's more than a mite simplistic that the lesson learned is basically "Fool around...and you'll end up a suicide!"

So, worth seeing as a very precocious early feature for a notable director, though very much constrained in the end by the rather dully earnest treatment of a "shocking" theme--this is a much better-crafted movie than most you might compare it to from the period, but at the same time that means it lacks some of those genuine cheapies' giddy unintentional comedy.

This was produced by Harry Cohn's brother Nat at Columbia Pictures but released under the Weldon Pictures banner to provide some distance for the parent company. Workaholic Don Bradley Jr. (Lyman Williams) agrees to go to a nightclub dinner party where he meets bottle-blonde Elise (Charlotte Merriam). The two have a wild night of drinking and end up in the sack. Don feels guilty since he's engaged to marry nice girl Joan (Diane Sinclair), and the two decide to elope. Imagine Don's embarrassment when Elise contacts him some time later to inform him that she's tested positive for syphilis. Don hides his secret shame, but has he already passed it on to dear sweet Joan? Also featuring Jason Robards Sr. And Marceline Day.

This has all of the hallmarks of later films of the type: nice people brought to near ruin after a night's careless debauchery; a positive outlook after mostly doom and gloom; and a protracted sequence showing real cases of advanced venereal disease patients in all of their grotesque horror. The copy I watched ran a scant 53 minutes, but IMDb lists it as having a 64 minute run time, and another source lists 74 minutes, so most likely it depends on how much of the really graphic footage was cut from each print. This was produced in conjunction with the Canadian Social Health Council, and marked the ignominious American directing debut of Edgar G. Ulmer. He manages to add a couple of interesting visual touches that raise this above the crowd, but just barely.