Marriage Forbidden

The Eugene Brieux play opened at a matinee performance in New York on March 14, 1913, then opened on Broadway one month later, according to Best Plays. Although onscreen credits and credits supplied to the PCA by Criterion Pictures Corp. indicated that Upton Sinclair adapted the Brieux play for the screen, information in the Sinclair collection at the Lilly Library at Indiana University indicates that Sinclair did not specifically write anything for the picture. The screenplay was apparently only based on a novelization of the Brieux play that Sinclair wrote in 1913. A revival of the play opened on Broadway on May 17, 1937, but ran for only eight performances. An onscreen foreword states: "This presentation of the Famous French Play "Damaged Goods" is the producer's sincere effort to co-operate in President Roosevelt's educational campaign to rid America of its greatest menace to health and happiness-a menace that has already taken toll of millions of lives and can only be curbed by bringing its discussion into the open and ceasing to consider it as an unmentionable-We refer to The Great Imitator-Syphilis."
       Credits were obtained from a print contained in the National Film Archive in London which bore the added prefatory sentence: "The audience are asked to note that the figures relating to disease which are quoted in the course of this story relate to the United States and not to Great Britain." Producer Phil Goldstone and director Phil Stone are the same person. According to a news item in Hollywood Reporter on February 24, 1937, portions of the film were shot on location in San Francisco, CA. The film originally opened in May 1937 under the title Damaged Goods, however, it was re-released in July 1938 as Marriage Forbidden, the title under which it was copyrighted in June 1938. Though Variety, Motion Picture Herald and Box Office reviewed the film under both titles, none mentioned the former title in the latter review. Most reviews for the 1937 and 1938 version of the film list a running time of 56 min., however release charts from Motion Picture Herald for Damaged Goods, list a running time of 60 min. and Box Office lists that title as 61 min., while it lists Marriage Forbidden at 56 min. Plot descriptions in reviews essentially agree for both titles. The Variety review of Damaged Goods notes that it and Damaged Lives, which opened in New York shortly before Damaged Goods, were similar in theme. Both films deal with venereal disease, and Variety notes that while both had had problems with censorship boards throughout the United States, the public was eager to see the films and hence they were released without the Hays Office Purity Seal.
       According to the file on the film, contained in the MPAA/PCA Collection in the AMPAS library, the picture was initially rejected by the Hays Office in 1937. Despite the lack of a PCA certificate, many states approved the film for exhibition, and the Roman Catholic organization, the National Legion of Decency, which was headquartered in New York, approved the film. In a June 4, 1937 letter contained in the PCA file, addressed to Harry Blair, an executive with Grand National Films, Inc., Mrs. James Loorman, a Legion of Decency officer, wrote "We hope that all adults and young adults see this film and appreciate, as we did, its sincerity." Despite the acceptance of the film by the Legion of Decency and other organizations, and the protests of the producers and distributors of the film, it was never certified. In March 1940 Joseph I. Breen of the Hays Office denied a request to reconsider certification, stating that its main theme, syphilis, violated Section II. 7. of the Production Code which stated: "Sex hygiene and venereal disease are not subjects for motion pictures." While Phil Goldstone of Criterion Pictures had argued that the 1940 Warner Bros. film Dr. Ehrlich's Magic Bullet had dealt with the same subject matter and had received certification, Breen pointed out that the Warner Bros. picture dealt with syphilis in a minor way, whereas Goldstone's picture dealt with it exclusively. The film was reviewed again in June 1947 and was again denied a certificate.
       Earlier films based on the Brieux play include Damaged Goods, a 1914 American Film Mfg. Co. picture directed by Thomas Ricketts, starring Richard Bennett and Adrienne Morrison, who had both appeared in the first American theatrical production, (see AFI Catalog of Feature Films, 1911-20) and two British productions made under the same title in 1915 and 1919.