The only way that an exploitation-minded movie producer in the 1940s could get away with parading nudity and frank sexual discussion onscreen was to slap together an “educational” film laced with assaultive medical footage. Traditional theaters were out of the question for this stuff so the makers instead put these films out on the road, touring them carnival-like around the USA, screening them in tents, stoking controversy, and touting the sensational content with jizzloads of ballyhoo.
This particular sexploitation hackjob gets right to the point. We’re not fifteen minutes into Because of Eve before we see nauseating close-ups of penises and vaginas specked with syphilitic lesions. The film’s thin, obligatory plot concerns an engaged couple who learn of each other’s sordid pasts. HE once contracted a venereal disease and SHE once miscarried an illegitimate child. They argue and call off the wedding, but heal their relationship thanks to glorious education.
This education consists of films that their doctor shows them about the ravages of VD and about how babies are born—complete with nude male and female models who are used for our anatomy lessons, the camera zooming in on their genitals so that they fill up your screen like Clint Eastwood’s face in The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. The “baby” segment is, of course, centered on fluid-splattered, vagina-ripping birth footage, with shots focused so close on the woman’s stretching snatch that the emerging newborn looks like it’s gonna reach up and wipe a rainbow of afterbirth slime on the camera lens.
After viewing this bloodbath, our young couple in the film are just beaming with delight, truly goddamn giddy to have learned something, while I’m still cowering on my couch and wondering whether or not its safe yet to uncover my eyes. Birth footage. Not my thing.