Who is Kroger Babb and What is His Connection to John Waters?! - Part 2

[00:00:00] Welcome to Perf Damage. Welcome! This is the show where we examine the forgotten histories of Hollywood. That's right, of Hollywood's past and this week we are going to continue a discussion we started about Kroger Babb. Yeah. Kroger Babb. He may have never heard of.

[00:00:19] But he was a gigantic influence on filmmakers like William Castle and John Waters. John Waters. Why isn't he more realistic? This is part 2 of a two-parter. So if you haven't listened to the first one, we recommend going and checking that one out and then coming back here.

[00:00:33] If you're already listened to it, you're in the right place. Hey movie lovers, I'm Adam. And I'm Charlotte. And welcome to Perf Damage. Where a movie obsessed has been a white team who work in the film industry. I oversee film restoration at the oldest studio in Hollywood.

[00:01:01] And I bring the inside track for film development and production. And we love to explore the hidden tales of movies past and present. So join us for a cinematic journey like no other. From classic gyms to examining the art of the double feature, this is Perf Damage.

[00:01:21] Popcorn pop? Why not the ready? Let's press play. So we mentioned today we are drinking the most. Because it's very early in the morning and we thought we need to be drinking some sort of beverage to do the podcast or it wouldn't feel authentic.

[00:01:49] No, I mean this is kind of one of our things. Yeah, and this is a totally acceptable drink. In the morning on Sunday. In the morning on a Sunday. Anyhow. So let's see, where did we leave off?

[00:02:01] We left off with Croger Bab, having a gigantic success with the movie, Mom and Dad. Yep. We jumped ahead. We illustrated how big of an impact mom and dad actually had. How many people had actually seen it? Right. And the box office. Right.

[00:02:16] To our magazine said that one out of every 10 people had seen the film in 1949. Yeah, that was in the world. In the world. That's insane. So here we are. You know, Croger Bab. This was not an easy road for him.

[00:02:28] And we want to kind of illustrate his crusaderism against censorship. Croger Bab was in over 400 lawsuits where he would sue local censor boards in order to get his film shown in specific cities. So it was not easy and easy road for him.

[00:02:47] He won all of those except for two of them. Do you think that he did that more for publicity than anything else? In certain ways, I think it was for publicity. But, you know, he was also crusading. He believed strongly in the material that his film was educational.

[00:03:05] And this is a quote from David Freeman's book, Youth in Babylon. David Freeman says, In the 35 years or so, I knew Croger Bab never once did he not proclaim mom and dad anything but a great crusade. Descend to save the world from sin and corruption.

[00:03:20] Never once did he admit to his friends and associates that it actually was the epitome of expert exploitation. Bab's favorite admonition was, you gotta tell him the sellem. And like any super salesman Bab sold himself first.

[00:03:37] So even amongst friends he never let down the veil that this was anything but him trying to save people from not knowing about sex education. Croger Bab does often use moral outrage to sell his films. John Waters does the same thing. Correct.

[00:03:57] Yeah, I mean all exploitation filmmakers do that. They want to enrage people so that they get a lot of press. It's free press if they do that. Yeah, no press is bad press. Exactly. And you know, Croger Bab says, you gotta tell him to sell them.

[00:04:12] This happened in John Waters hometown. Baltimore. This is a little story. Croger Bab did not get to open mom and dad in Baltimore because they had a very powerful sensor board until 1957. And 1957 was when John Waters actually ended up seeing the film mom and dad.

[00:04:31] But because of the hard case sensors in that town, the Knights of Columbus came out to protest the film when it came by. You're a Knights of Columbus. Knights of Columbus is a fraternal order all mail and they came out to march. Sure, they like the shriners.

[00:04:46] They're like the shriner, yes. In the fact the shriners come into this. So really. So the Knights of Columbus come out in full uniform, full regalia to come out and march against this horrible film that's going to ruin their kids and corrupt them.

[00:05:02] And so they line up outside of mom and dad and they start marching back and forth. And Croger Bab sees this and he says, oh my gosh, this is it's on. This is gonna happen now. So he immediately calls all the press outlets in town.

[00:05:16] Of course, to have them show up and take pictures. But not only does he do that, he also calls the local mason's of which He was a member of. And he calls them out to pick it the Knights of Columbus. So they had beef with each other.

[00:05:34] They weren't well, they were friendly. They were friends of Croger's. So therefore they would do what he asked them to do. And all that did was create more a whole of blue outside. Yeah, you've got these guys marching this way. You got these guys marching this way.

[00:05:49] These guys are marching against the film. These guys are marching against the guys that are marching against the film. And it just creates this kind of controlled chaos outside. Yeah. Meanwhile he got plenty of photo opportunities. Right. And then when they finally called it quits outside the theater,

[00:06:05] He gave them all free tickets to go see the movie and half of them stayed to watch the movie. So were they protesting while the movie had started that weekend? Yes. Yeah. Let's talk about Croger Bab and the local churches. Legion of Dyson, Oh, I love.

[00:06:19] Was a group of churches that were very powerful. And mostly Catholic. And mostly Catholic. Yeah, Catholic Legion of Dyson. Right. I think it might have only been the Catholic. Yeah. And they've been around forever. Probably still around. Yeah. And they would issue their own ratings for movies.

[00:06:37] So they would rate something as condemned. They would have a sea. They would have approved or something like that. Yeah. I don't remember all their ratings, but they issued their own ratings for films for a really long time.

[00:06:49] Which would cause local theater owners not to pick up the film. Right. If it was not an A approved film. Right. Croger needed these guys on his side in order to show his films in various areas.

[00:07:02] The Legion of Dyson C felt it was their crusade to rate all the things that were on the margin. Because most Hollywood product at this point was already censored. By Hollywood itself. Right. By the Hayes code.

[00:07:15] So everything that came out of Hollywood they could guarantee would be okay for children to see. Whenever they would threaten to give him a condemned rating, he would march out this concept that he had for his next film, which was called Father Bingo.

[00:07:30] Father Bingo was a film that he never intended to make. But Father Bingo was a condemnation on the Catholic Church for hosting gambling within their walls.

[00:07:44] Whenever he would have a run-in with the Legion of Dyson C, he would start running all of these ads and papers saying that his next big feature was father Bingo. And that it was going to take down the Catholic Church for being corrupt.

[00:07:57] So Father Bingo never got made needless to say it was only a threatening tactic that he would use to get them in line. I like that. Because mom and dad was such a gigantic success.

[00:08:18] Within a few years, you've got several imitators that were basically, I mean they took the story verbatim. The boyfriend dies. Oh no way. So street corners about a girl that gets knocked up and her boyfriend also dies.

[00:08:33] I mean, it is a direct rip off of mom and dad. I'll hear in Hollywood, every one on the motion picture industry is talking about the most startling dramatic picture ever produced. You're about to see some of the scenes from the picture of which I speak. Street corner.

[00:08:54] It will be shown in your theater in the very near future. I assure you it's one of the most amazing productions ever exhibited. Oh, Doctor, you make everything sound so serious. Lois won't even be thinking of marriage, but yes.

[00:09:07] Are you talking about sex education or something like that, Doctor? So the really interesting one though is Bob and Sally. Bob and Sally was also made in 1940, it released in 1948. But it was unlike the others produced by a major. It was produced by universal pictures. No way.

[00:09:43] So they saw the success of mom and dad. And one of the producers that universal says, why can't we do it? We can do it better. They'll look better. That's awesome. It'll be just as successful.

[00:09:53] Well, when he actually made the film and universal looked at it, they're like, we can't release this. This is horrible. You know, like we can't have a birth real in one of our films put out by a major.

[00:10:06] So they quickly turn it around and dumped it to an independent producer. So Bob and Sally is the only one of these films that was produced by a major. That's interesting that that happened in 1948 because that's when the Paramount decrees actually took effect. That's that right. Yeah.

[00:10:26] And you would think that they would be scrambling for any kind of anything to get attention, to get money, to get, you know? Well, apparently a birth real was a little much really. I'm sure that was going a little too far. Yeah.

[00:10:40] So I actually haven't seen this film, but it is supposed to be the best produced of all of them. Really? Because mom and dad is. Yeah, it's very solid. Yeah. It's all of them. Yeah. Very solid film.

[00:10:52] Oftentimes because these were all independently owned films, they would find themselves running in the same town at the same time. Oh, no. And so that would just ruin business for both of them. Right.

[00:11:06] Because you know, no single town can support two films that are basically carbon copies of each of each other. Yeah. So what Curgre Bab did. And this is how incredible this guy was. Because at the time his film was still running.

[00:11:20] His film was running till the mid 70s. Yeah, they were never stopped. They were still road showing it around. Yes, absolutely. But that's what these other guys were doing too. And so they would sometimes find themselves in the same region.

[00:11:33] So it was like a western showdown kind of thing. Right. And then it was just. Mom and dad versus. Bab and Sally. Bab and Sally. Bab and Sally. So nice Sunday. I'd watch that. You'd buy that for a dollar. I know I really wanted to say that.

[00:11:50] Did you? I signed your face. I was like down to it and then you did it. Yeah. So what Curgre Bab did was he said, why are we doing this? We need more organization. He went to the owners of these other three films.

[00:12:14] The four of them came together. And then they organized. So through one single office. They booked all four films. And so none of them ever played again on top of each other. It made sure that they had maximum profitability.

[00:12:30] And it also made sure that they didn't get played out because you could go through a town with mom and dad. And then three months later, you could go through it with Bob and Sally. And their different films even though they're basically the same movie.

[00:12:46] Curgre Bab organizing like no one had ever done that for independence coming together, forming an entity. And then organizing in a big way. It seems like he really understood how to use whatever sort of adversity hurt all was thrown his way.

[00:13:02] He knew how to use that to his advantage or to others advantage. Yeah. He's really good at adapting like said adaptability. And he's a good speaker. So he was able to get these four disparate entities to come together. And you know, they were usually at each other's throats.

[00:13:18] And they had a very long relationship. Yeah, we probably just did it with numbers. Look guys. Here's what we're making. You want to make the same. Maybe now and as much. Yeah. Maybe I'll look mine look. How do yours? Mm-hmm. Yeah.

[00:13:35] When are few's getting like a cut of theirs? They all, they shared it as a pool. Oh, okay. Yeah. So all of them shared it as a pool. They made all of them very rich people. All right. So, you know, let's talk about Babs' other films.

[00:13:58] He didn't just do mom and dad. He picked up this regional Oklahoma film called The Lawton Story. And basically what it was was a version of the birth of Jesus, a pageant that Lot no Oklahoma held every year. And they put it on film.

[00:14:15] And it was very popular in Oklahoma. Mm-hmm. But, you know, the rest of the country hadn't seen it. What Bab did was he took this film which was apparently a real dog because the dialogue was all in thick Oklahoma accents.

[00:14:31] This is a quote of what some of the dialogue was like to listen to. Okay. So Christ at the last supper says, What y'all gonna betray me tonight? And in the next cut, Judas pointing to Jesus whispers to the Romans. That's him. That's him over Yanda.

[00:14:50] Give me thowed at peace as a silver. I don't know. I was born in Oklahoma. I understood that completely fine. So, Kruger Bab had a great idea. He took the film and he redubbed the entire film with professional actors. And he also changed the title.

[00:15:07] He knew where Lot No. Oklahoma was. He renamed it the Prince of Peace. And so he played it very successfully across the country. The passion play aspect played no matter where they were. Mm-hmm. And people went out to see it.

[00:15:21] When the son of Manchuk common his glory and all the holy angels with him, Benchuk he gathered all nations and separate them. One from another as a shepherd divided, the sheep from the goats. Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand.

[00:15:38] Come, you blessed of my father. And hear it. The kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. You know, that kind of reminds me of bands like The Louven Brothers that would take those moments to do those sermons in the middle of a song.

[00:15:55] That's kind of what that sounds like. It kind of does. But center friend, if you're here today, Satan is real too. And hell is a real place of place of everlasting punishment. So it was a minor success for him. Not on the scale of the song.

[00:16:23] Yeah, not on my dad. But, you know, he took something that was described as being 70 minutes long that felt like it was three hours and turned it into something palatable for people to go and see. Man, I've worked on some Republican Westerns that are under 60 minutes

[00:16:42] and feel like they're two hours. You're mongred, man. The longest 60 minutes of your life. Right. The next film that he produced, though, was called One Too Many. And this was in 1950 and it was... That's just a bad title for critic. Crogramab does one. What, two million.

[00:17:22] I mean, that's sorry. Yeah, he's just right. Basically asking for it. You are asking for it. Yeah. Well, this was a giant flop. It was about a housewife that had trouble with alcohol. And it was his big diatribe on alcoholism. What year did it come out? 1950.

[00:17:40] He thought he was going to do for alcoholism at the in the home. What mom and dad did for teenage pregnancy. But that didn't really happen because... I mean, what did it do for teenage pregnancy? I mean, we had the baby food. Well, it was...

[00:17:54] It was caused by mom and dad. I don't think so. Was it? Who's to say? Could be. When out of every 10 people had seen mom and dad, baby boom. Boom. Just saying... Dang, you just drop in knowledge like crazy. I'm not dropping knowledge. I am dropping speculation.

[00:18:14] So, one too many was a gigantic flop. They're not all hits for Crogramab. Okay. So this one... You know, he found that people just didn't want to be told that alcohol was bad for them. I made up my mind.

[00:18:30] I'm never going to have another drink as long as I'm there. So, I am in trouble. Alan is really on and she's got this shake but good. Crogramab would meet after the receipts came in for the last film,

[00:18:54] and he would always have dinner really late, like 11 o'clock or later after the last show. And he's very famous for having about 11 mark... Not Margarita's... Why does they margarita? Because you want a margarita? Definitely want a margarita. Yeah, 11 Margarita's a night.

[00:19:11] You know, that's a Crogramab night, a good night. And he thinks he's going to tell everybody about the dangers of alcohol this guy. I mean, who knows? Yeah.

[00:19:20] Well, I think people were just not ready to be told that alcohol is bad for them because they love it so much. I mean, I wouldn't want to. You take away alcohol. Let me see. Let me see. Let me see.

[00:19:42] So, I like this format where you're doing all the talking and I'm doing all the drinking because I feel like most of the time it's the other way around. Yeah, yeah. This is a good one for you, huh?

[00:20:00] So, after the debacle that was one too many, he pivoted and decided to go with something that was kind of ripped from the alcohol.

[00:20:09] And then he was going to go with the red lines and the head lines, caching in on the 15 minute success of this lady called Lila leads. I've never heard of her.

[00:20:17] Well, not many people have nowadays because she only had the kind of 15 minutes of fame but she was renowned for being arrested with Robert Mitcham for smoking marijuana. Yeah. So they both got picked up for possession at a party. Robert Mitcham did a couple weeks in jail.

[00:20:37] And they were very afraid that it was going to ruin his career but luckily he bounced back. Lila leads on the other hand served no jail time when she got on the stand, the judge took pity on her and let her off with no punishment whatsoever.

[00:20:52] So Lila leads reputation and career were basically ruined at that point. So she decided that she would do a film to caching quickly on her 15 minutes fame. It was called Wild weed. It was a giant bomb at the box office when it came out.

[00:21:11] So that's where Kerber Bab stepped in and he said, I think this has potential kid. And he picked it up, recut it, renamed it The Devil's weed. Also, this one has several titles. She should have said no, which is probably the most popular title.

[00:21:30] And AKA the Lila leads story and her expose of the marijuana racket. Little wordy. Yeah. So yeah. What should it be? It's basically the plot of reaper madness which came out much earlier and it's very similar. It's about a young girl.

[00:21:46] It's kind of lured into this group of people and they force weed on her. And it sends her down a bad track where she becomes basically a prostitute for money. Oh no, baby, not like that here. Try to show somebody else stupid, not her. Like this honey.

[00:22:16] Now you try it. It's the way. One is like nothing beautiful. Try another. It's a real pleasure. Congratulations. Now you will start loving. This is the best part. So grunk Kruger Bad when he recut the film, he put it out with the tagline.

[00:23:12] How bad can a good girl get without losing her virtue or respect? So yeah, this one played, it was a mild success. What I read was that he would take it into a town. It would play one night only.

[00:23:26] And then he would escape with all everybody's money before the dawn. So he 40 thieves did he 40 thieves this one hardcore. So after that he decided to produce another film of his own. The secrets of beauty, AK, why men leave home, 1951.

[00:23:44] Kruger Bad is actually in the film which is exciting. Yeah, you actually get to hear what he sounds like talking. Yeah, and he doesn't sound at all like the guy. Doesn't sound at all like this. That's what you want everybody to do.

[00:23:55] I kind of want everybody to sound like that, like Oscar the garage piece. This is Kruger One. Yes, Mr. Bad. Have a rest more command, please. Right, Mr. Wixer. Any other problems? Yeah, get a look at this. The invasion of Hollywood.

[00:24:23] All the winners of your national child talent contest. 48 states, 48 winners, and they're all here. We get a kick out of every one of them. And look at that little fella over there. See what I had here like yourself in for. Children don't worry me. I love them.

[00:24:40] Oh, no, no, no. How are we? We have a problem. We like your opinion. So in the clip not only do you get to see Kruger Bad but he introduces Milldrid. Oh, no, no. How are we? She also co-wrote the film. Or co-wrote the story by.

[00:24:59] So her and Kruger share a story by credit on this one. Basically the story of a woman who is afraid that she's going to lose her husband, this doctor, she goes to Hollywood and learns the secrets of makeup from her voice more of all people.

[00:25:15] One of the famous Westmores. I am honored and happy to present Mr. Iron Westmore. I'm more applause than I've received in my entire life. And I don't mind telling you it makes me feel awfully good.

[00:25:32] I know that all of you are here to see if I can prove what I always contended that there is no woman in the world who can't be made to look more beautiful. So yeah, he's her voice more.

[00:25:44] Teaches her how to do her makeup and she becomes attractive to her husband again and is able to keep him from strain. It's very kind of trait. If there is one thing you can't accuse me of, it's a being selfish.

[00:26:01] What else do you call a wife who thinks a relationship with her husband ends when the dinner dishes are done? Or on rare occasions, the stozer infections like it's a special compensation. I won't listen anymore.

[00:26:11] You will listen or you will be sorry for the rest of your life. It's very dated. But, you know, it's for what it is. It's not bad. The film was entertaining enough. Yeah. You should be the end part with the makeup tips. Yeah.

[00:26:28] That was wondering if you were trying to get me to take notes. No. That's what was going on. The last third of the movie is basically just a big makeup tutorial. Which is fascinating in itself. There is one woman, the oval-faced woman.

[00:26:44] They put makeup on her and then they powder her. And they put so much powder on her face. Her face is light. And I love it. He starts brushing off. There's a giant cloud. Yeah. That's why it's called the powder room because there must have been powder everywhere.

[00:27:02] This is how women put on makeup. But, yeah. You know, her describes the different shapes of faces and how you should apply makeup. They have a before and after picture at the end. But it's definitely the lighting that's mostly different.

[00:27:16] You know, Croker really should have sprung for color film at the end of this. If you didn't want to spend color for the whole film, The end of it should have been in color because they're showing these women how to do blush.

[00:27:28] Well, and they're constantly talking about colors. Yeah. And yet it's black and white. And black and white makeup is so much different than color makeup. So you're just, you're not really getting the impact that you should, because why I think they did the before and after lighting effect.

[00:27:42] Because it made it more dramatic. Right. And you seen in color it would have probably been a lot more dramatic. And typical Croker Bab fashion. The reason there's this big makeup tutorial at the end is so that he could sell Makeup kits. Oh, that's right. That's right.

[00:27:57] He spent a lot of money investing in make-up kits. And he would sell them for $10 after the show. Wow. That's over $100 today. It was a big ask. It's like AMC selling those popcorn purses. Have you seen those? Yeah, I don't know how they expensive.

[00:28:13] Yeah. Well, I didn't know. Yeah, they're almost 100 bucks. Are they really? Yeah. For popcorn? Back. Wow. Yeah. I don't know. That's kind of a big ask out of anybody. I don't know who would buy popcorn and stuff anyways. You don't have to point at it.

[00:28:32] That's actually a big ask out of the show. It's just terrible one, but it was a gigantic failure. And maybe itself. Yeah. And David Friedman's book. He talked about going to Crokers house at one point and he had one of those Big shipping containers filled with those.

[00:28:46] Oh, to make up. Yeah. And this was much later. And they ended up just joking the entire shipping container full Of these $100 make-up. You know, big loss. Well, in the film, that guy doing the make-up says you don't need to use any

[00:29:01] a regular brand any brand will work. Right. And when he says that, and you told me about the makeup, things I thought, well, there's your disconnect right there. Whoops. So it's herbs fault that it failed. I've heard of Westmore. Just saying. Yeah, crazy.

[00:29:15] He's not telling them they need to use or buy this, who saying you can use whatever, which is a nice message, but not when you're trying to hawk some makeup. That's right. So this was another big setback for Croger.

[00:29:27] And he's what campaign to reclaim the glory of mom and dad. But this is interesting. I've been waiting for something. Something interesting. Something interesting. So after that, he was looking to pick up another film for distribution because he needed to make quick money. Something already made. Yep.

[00:29:50] And he found a film called My Summer with Monica in 1953. And it was by a small up-and-coming director named Ingmar Bergen. Don't miss Monica filmed in beautiful Sweden. Complete English version with brilliant music by Les Factsur. Everybody's talking about Monica.

[00:30:14] Yeah, I had no clue that he had ties to Ingmar Bergen. Yeah, he was one of the guys that actually introduced Ingmar Bergen into America. Wow. Well, what he did to his film, Ingmar Bergen didn't really care for. Oh, so he added it to it.

[00:30:27] Oh, yes he did. He turned it into a film. He cut about. He turned it into a film. He cut over 20 minutes from the film, keeping all the sexy stuff. The reason he picked it up was because there's a skinny dipping scene in it. Actual nudity on film.

[00:30:42] And they were able to get around that because it was European. And so again, educational. The people here in America. Here's the European. Yeah. They're all for about it. So he added it to the film down, focusing on the sexy parts.

[00:30:57] And he called it Monica, the story of a bad girl. This time, it's Monica, the story of a bad girl. Starting this sensational young Swedish actress, Ms. Harriet Anderson, in a picture that had to be filmed extra wide for broad screens, extra bold for broad minds.

[00:31:20] This became the most widely seen Ingmar Bergen film for years afterwards. Really. So it was a success. Yes, it was a very big success for him. This version of the film is kind of lost today. Which version? The story of a bad girl that edited it on America.

[00:31:36] Yeah, the Crocker Bad version of the film. So you can find the original version of the film. Yes, you can find my summer with Monica. But you cannot find the Crocker Bad version of it. Interesting. Yeah. There's a copy out there somewhere.

[00:31:49] I'm sure someone has a print somewhere. It's never lost. We just haven't found it yet. It's right. It's a collection. That's like the trademark of the archive. This slogan of the archive. We just haven't found it yet. It's here, obviously.

[00:32:05] And so after that, that being a success, he picked up another film. Sorry, what year was that? That was 1953. 53. Okay. And in 1954, Crocker Bad picked up a travel log film called Caramosa.

[00:32:21] And this film was basically a Mando film way before Mando films in the 70s became very popular. So this was 1954? Yeah, 1954. Crocker Bad really liked this one because it was in color too.

[00:32:33] Again he just picked up a finished film and then edited it down to the good parts. Basically. Crocker Bad doing a service to us all. And this was part of a cycle of films that called the Ugobu-Gofilms back then.

[00:32:47] It was a way for them to get around censorship laws and show naked women. You could go and see native women. And the reason that they were able to go on censored is because that is their normal state. And they called it the National Geographic Rule basically.

[00:33:03] People weren't going to see it for that. They were going to see it for obviously. Yeah, for the nudity and stuff. But this film, in addition to that had them drinking calves blood, knocking their front to teeth out to make room for a plug.

[00:33:18] It had a lot of things that became very popular in the Mando films in the 70s. A Mando cane is what I'm talking about. Yeah, there was cycle of films that came out of the popularity of Mando cane. This was a mild success for him.

[00:33:33] Oh, I should read. So in addition to editing it down to just the gory and nudity parts he wrote this amazing sales pitch. This is his entire sales pitch. I have to read this thing. OK. Shocking sites of the world's most primitive people true daring beyond belief.

[00:33:53] Crocker Bab presents Caramosa Land of the Lost People. Of course he puts his name in there. And new Eastman color, the world's last lost tribe on touched by our modern civilization. See the enchanted Lord Wormones, the Valley of Bones, the River of Rolling Sand, the Prairie

[00:34:05] of the lurking death, the enchanted force of deer, the world's tallest giraffe. See the ancient whites of ball, customs of the Iron Age, the stone age and practice today, the worship of the Golden Calf, a people without fear who displayed no sign of pain.

[00:34:14] See, savage tribesmen wearing the men they have killed tattooed on their right arms and the women they have killed on their left arm. Thirty-foot wells dug using only the smallest of sticks. See children's teeth knocked out by stones, holes punched through the lower lip and lip

[00:34:23] blood of no piquor's fashion and inserted. The cannon forged the skirts of the crusaders. See jungles bristling with lions hyenas and snakes invaded by the Caramogens, arm only the spears. Unbearable temperatures up to 150 degrees, the melting of solid iron. See amazing bleeding of animals per food.

[00:34:35] Caramosa's growing to giants on a diet of only blood and beer. They have never tasted vegetables. See food, foul, meats or bread. See some sand teeth that no no decay. World's most elaborate air silence, incredible earrings women by all husbands toes were being bad.

[00:34:46] See people who pay no taxes. Sofer no disease, feel no pain, count no years, fight no wars, living today in the most primitive and uncivilized customs of the earth history. That is Crogramab in full-on Crogramab fashion.

[00:34:59] It sounds like he just did a bunch of cocaine and just went to town. Right? Pretty much. That is too much. That is too much. Yeah, I mean he wanted to hit on all the good parts. So this was an article? What was this?

[00:35:11] No, this is like his sales pitch. It came out of like a sales pitch booklet. Okay, just pick one C maybe two. Right. There's too much. Oh and then the tagline for this film was C women who only wear the wind. Oh, so good. Only wear the wind.

[00:35:39] Crogramab. Celenit, got to tell him to sell him. Yeah, so this was also a mild success for him. But kind of we're forgotten film now. So while he had all these movies though, he was still pumping mom and dad. Right? Yes, absolutely.

[00:35:54] Crogramab had been dreaming about getting into New York the biggest market in America and he'd been fighting with their since or bored ever since mom and dad came out. Yeah, they actually had a pretty strict sensor board. Very strong, very strict.

[00:36:08] In 1957, the sensor board had kind of weakened enough that he was able to get mom and dad into this big market. And he was very, very excited to be in New York.

[00:36:17] He'd always dreamed of playing on Broadway and it was a way to kind of prove that he was a real filmmaker, a real producer, a big timer. And so New York was his way in basically. He saw it as his way in. Interesting. That's right.

[00:36:36] We're all the money and all the decisions are made down from New York. So he books the film in New York in a theater and it's supposed to run for four weeks, which is a major run for him. He comes in, he does a big ad spend.

[00:36:50] And by big, we're talking tens of thousands of dollars. That's way more. Yeah, it's not like him. No, it's way more than he would do. But, you know, Crogramab saying, well, as you got to tell him to sell him.

[00:37:02] So he took out radio ads, he took out big, full page things to let everybody know that mom and dad is going to be there. He does all the things that he normally does.

[00:37:11] And then people just didn't come instead of cutting back like all of his partners said to do Crogramab spends more the next week. And when that didn't work, he spent more the next week. And about the two and a half week point, the partner said,

[00:37:31] listen, you cannot do this anymore. There's no way that we can turn a profit in this market. Yeah. And if you continue to do this, it's on you. So Crogramab says fine, I'm going to win. I'm going to do this. These people will come to this movie.

[00:37:45] They just need to know about it. And so at the end of four weeks, Crogramab owed them $60,000. If you want to do a calculation for $60,000 and $19.57, wow. How much is it? $650,000. $650,000. So when he came back, they called them meeting of all four.

[00:38:14] They said, Crogramab, we told you not to do this. You did it anyway. You vouch that you were going to be on the hook for it. They said the only way out is that you're no longer part of modern films.

[00:38:26] And you sign away all your rights to mom and dad. So the guy that founded modern films and collected all these people together. And the guy that created the whole hygiene cycle was booted out of his own company. And he no longer owned the film that made him.

[00:38:45] This was a sad sad sad. Yeah. That's sad, but that wasn't the end of Crogramab. Of course not. Okay. You know, but you're going to leave us on a sad note there. No, you can't defeat Crogramab. Crogramab will persist. All right. So so the deeds.

[00:39:02] Yeah, afterwards he did all kinds of things. I mean, he was associated with various production and distribution companies, designed publicity campaigns for numerous independent films. He produced a couple more films. One of them was Kipling's women.

[00:39:17] It was a new EQD as they got into that kind of period. We were work for our parents and the woman. Forever and ever. Even. It's an ethical color and wide screen with Kitty's presence. It's pretty was limited to the more tenor scenes. Remember Kipling's mind.

[00:39:45] The Colonel's wife and Judio Grady were like sisters under their skin. But he wasn't his heart wasn't in that. He didn't like explicit things. He liked to sell the sizzle, not the steak. That's what his, another one of his mantras was sell the sizzle, not the steak.

[00:40:01] So once they started getting into the steak in the films, he wasn't interested in doing that. Let's see. He created a consulting company for speaking engagements and a correspondence school where he renamed himself Mr. Pish Swanna who's which is showman chip spell backwards. Yeah. Why?

[00:40:25] Why name yourself something no one can pronounce? I don't know. He created a pyramid scheme titled the idea factory where he would bring people in and they would give ideas and he would take those ideas. So it's like Shark Tank meets Bernie made up. Exactly.

[00:40:43] Exactly like Shark Tank meets Bernie made up. Okay. Oh, but this is my favorite. This is my favorite thing that he did afterwards. He created what he called the astounding Swedish ice cream diet.

[00:40:57] That promise that you would lose 100 pounds in 45 days by eating ice cream three times a day. I just love this concept at this point. Crocker Bab was like, I want more detail. 300 pounds. I was like, can I get a number for this? Yeah. How can I sign on?

[00:41:18] I really want to be a part of it. No, you guys three all day three times a day. So in 1977, Crocker Bab decided to call it quits. He retired palm springs. It's a good place to retire too. Yeah. And sadly three years later he passed away.

[00:41:35] But he left the legacy. In 2005, mom and dad was entered into the national registry of film. That's held by the library of Congress and every year you can actually nominate films for that and you can nominate a whole bunch of them anybody can. Right.

[00:41:51] And that means if it's in the national registry film, it means it's a culturally significant film. So yeah, we should all add a link for that if you have films that aren't in there,

[00:42:02] you can actually check out the whole list and then you can nominate films for this shared. See if it makes it end. So let me ask you a question. Why do you think the Crocker Bab isn't remembered more? Why isn't he up there with Cecil B.

[00:42:16] Cecil B. to Mill or Billy Wilder? Well, you're naming directors. That's where William Castle director but also showmanship producer. Right. Same with John Waters. Right. He's a writer director and producer. So yeah, I think Crocker Bab simply because he was mainly thought of as a producer.

[00:42:40] And so that showmanship aspect he should be remembered for that. But he's not remembered as the author of films. And I think that's part of the reason that we don't remember him in the same way that we remember some of these other major entities.

[00:42:53] Well, the other thing I think you hit it right there, as you said, major and all of his stuff was independent. So that kind of stuff gets forgotten more easily because the rights get sort of lost sometimes. And it's not necessarily owned by a big name institution.

[00:43:10] It's not available more often unless you know a lot of the stuff falls into public domain. And then, you know, there's crappy copies. So there's not like a big to do when it gets restored by some kind of an institution or a group.

[00:43:24] Or it never gets restored right? Like a lot of, yeah, there's nobody. It's an orphan. These films are orphans out there. So there's no one to actually kind of cultivate it and to keep it alive. Right. To feed it and make it, it's legacy grow.

[00:43:40] Yeah, or I mean, even the elements to the films get lost. We deal with this. I'm part of this group called missing movies. Right.

[00:43:48] And the group tries to find and reconnect filmmakers and their films or to find rights to a film that may have been sort of lost. Studio rights are really. Crazy. I don't know how they do it.

[00:44:03] So a studio can own part of a movie and then another studio is part of a movie and another student maybe even it's multiple.

[00:44:09] And then who owns the actual elements, maybe that some people own parts of the elements here and parts there and then they get bought or sold and then those roll into there or some place closes and then where do they're elements go?

[00:44:22] I mean, the older the film, the crazier gets trying to find you know who owns the stuff and where it is. Crogramab died before the big home video wave. So he wasn't alive to see the value that these films now have in their afterlife. Yeah.

[00:44:43] And no one really thought that that would ever become a thing, you know, most you could hope for is television sales and then we get shown on television and of course mom dad will never get shown on television not with a VD real and a live birth and all of these shocking things.

[00:44:59] Although it's pretty tame by today standards. Yeah, most of it, but I mean still like you don't see live verse on television, it's just not something that they show so.

[00:45:06] But I mean if it gets up to people like us and people like John Waters and people to, you know, talk about the cultural significance of mom and dad and the impact that it had.

[00:45:18] I mean this was one of the biggest movies of the 40s, the third biggest film of an entire decade and very few people know about it. There was citizen cane. That's what he just said. Yeah, gone with the wind. 1939 shoot. Sorry.

[00:45:44] So there it is, the sorted history of Crogramab. And we didn't even hit on all the points. I mean there's that girl that he tried to make a star, ginger or something. Yeah, he wanted to make her the next Shirley Temple. Mm-hmm.

[00:45:57] But she didn't have Shirley Temple's talent at all. No. Plus her. I mean you guys decide. Anyhow, thanks for joining us as we chat about Crogramab. If you want to learn more about Crogramab, there's a couple books that Adam will recommend and the end.

[00:46:25] We'll put the names of the books there. They were pretty good reads, I guess. Yeah, David Friedman one is amazing. If you want to see some of the films, a lot of them, they're more or less public domain. So you can see him on YouTube or Crap Coppies.

[00:46:40] Keynote put out a nicer copy of Mom and Dad with the Library of Congress. So if you want to own a copy of this culturally significant film, pick it up. According to Library Congress. All right, Crogramab. Until next time, thanks for joining us here on Perfance. Okay.

[00:47:27] You know, if I could change the channel, I would.