Kroger Babb

Babb was born in 1906 in Lees Creek, Ohio. He earned the nickname "Kroger" either from his childhood job at the grocer of the same name or from his father's preference for B.H. Kroger coffee. but first achieved success after his promotion to publicity manager for the Chakeres-Warners movie theaters, where he would create different kinds of stunts to lure audiences—for example, a drawing to award two bags of groceries to one ticket holder at selected theaters. In the early 1940s Babb joined Cox and Underwood, a company that obtained the rights to poorly made or otherwise unmarketable films of subjects that were potentially controversial or shocking. It would often remove entire sections of these films and add material such as medical reels that lent itself to sensational promotion. Babb went on the road with a Cox and Underwood concoction titled Dust to Dust, a reworking of High School Girl with a childbirth scene added to the end. Its profits allowed Cox and Underwood to retire from the business, leaving Babb to start his own company, Hygienic Productions. He opened it near his childhood home in Wilmington, Ohio, and hired booking agents and advance salesmen along with out-of-work actors and comedians to present repackaged films and new features. ==Film promotion==

Babb is best known for his presentation of exploitation films, a term many in the business would embrace. Babb's biggest success was Mom and Dad, which he conceived and produced and which William Beaudine directed in six days. Babb headed the promotion of this film following its premiere in early 1945, often going on the road with it himself. with a "presenter"—later known as an advance man—and the presenter would stir up his own controversy in the weeks preceding the film's arrival by writing protest letters to local churches and newspapers and fabricating letters from the mayors of nearby cities relating tales of young women encouraged by the film to discuss similar predicaments. and the Los Angeles Times estimated that it grossed anywhere from $40 million to $100 million. and ultimately was added to the National Film Registry in 2005.) According to entertainer Card Mondor, an Elliot Forbes in the 1940s who later purchased the Australian and New Zealand rights for Mom and Dad, the Forbeses were "mostly local men (from Wilmington, Ohio) who were trained to give the lecture . . . [I]t was a cross-section of the male population, mostly clean-cut young guys . . . The whole concept would have never worked with a trashy look." During the intermission and after the showing, books relevant to the subject of the film were sold. Mom and Dad's distributor Modern Film Distributors sold over 45,000 copies of Man and Boy and Woman and Girl, written by Babb's wife, As well as being at the forefront of the battles over censorship and the motion picture censorship system, the exploitation genre faced numerous challenges during the 1940s and 1950s. ==Later films==

Following the success of Mom and Dad, Babb renamed his company Hallmark Productions, continuing the marketing approaches of Hygienic Productions while going beyond health and sex education films. He would later set up a larger distribution company, named Hallmark's Big-6. Babb cheaply acquired the rights to what would become "She Shoulda Said No!" shortly after Robert Mitchum and Lila Leeds were arrested for marijuana use. Its original producer had struggled to get it distributed as Wild Weed, and Babb quickly presented it as The Story of Lila Leeds and Her Exposé of the Marijuana Racket, hoping that the title would draw audiences. When it failed to stir up much interest, Babb instead focused on the one scene of female nudity, using a photo of Leeds in a showgirl outfit, and retitled it ''"She Shoulda Said 'No'!"'', with taglines such as "How Bad Can a Good Girl Get . . . without losing her virtue or respect???" ==Other ventures==

After the success of Mom and Dad, Babb talked of an "unrealized" project called Father Bingo, which he advertised in BoxOffice magazine as "An Exposé of Gambling in the Parish Halls" and described as a comedy with an anti-gambling message about a corrupt priest who runs a "controlled" bingo night at his parish. Babb called it "the best 'snow-job' of my life", and it has been speculated that he never intended to make it, despite the trade ads that appeared for years. On the strength of his past successes, Babb joined John Miller's film production company, Miller-Consolidated Pictures, as vice president and general manager in 1959. Babb advocated the use of the hard-selling technique he had perfected as a presenter: "selling the sizzle instead of the steak", according to an interview. He wrote a column for BoxOffice at the same time. His personal anecdotes provided advice for selling films, such as writing off expenses as tax deductions, and using women's clubs to expand advertising and revenues cheaply. He noted that there were "over 30,000 women's clubs", and that "practically every women's club has a 16mm projector".), it used similar roadshow techniques to market television programs such as The Ern Westmore Show. Babb also acted as a showman for hire, promoting others' films when not working on his own. Among them was a nudie-cutie picture titled ''Kipling's Women, a peep show, and Five Minutes to Love'', a reworking of a Rue McClanahan film. Babb began creating promotion kits entitled "Who's Got the Ball?" in an attempt to teach his craft to would-be presenters. Marketing himself as "MR. PIHSNAMWOHS" ("showmanship" backwards), he advertised in BoxOffice. He also dabbled in other areas, writing tirades against pay television and creating a pyramid scheme titled "The Idea Factory". One of his schemes was the "Astounding Swedish Ice Cream Diet": overweight throughout his life, Babb claimed to have eaten ice cream three times a day, yet to have lost 100 pounds in 45 days. ==Personal life==

Babb met Mildred Horn in 1944 during a showing of Dust to Dust in Indianapolis, where she was working as a movie critic; her review of the film called it a "cheap, mislabeled morality play", but the two struck up a conversation about it. They stayed together in a common-law marriage; Horn wrote a number of Babb's screenplays, including Mom and Dad, as well as companion books. Babb had tax troubles in the years after his success with Mom and Dad. He suggested to the Press-Enterprise that his operation was so diffuse that sales of his one-dollar sex education pamphlets were too difficult to track accurately. Babb suffered from various ailments toward the end of his life, including a stroke. and died of heart failure (due to complications from diabetes) on January 29, 1980, in Palm Springs, California. ==Works==

Babb worked in various areas of the entertainment industry, in both traditional and exploitation genres. He claimed to have made twenty films, radio, and even the stage. This is an incomplete collection of works owing to the nature of the exploitation genre. The titles are as they were finally presented by Babb, with earlier titles noted in parentheses. As film producer • Dust to Dust (1938) • Mom and Dad (1945) • The Lawton Story (1949) • One Too Many (1951) • Secrets of Beauty (1951) As film writer • One Too Many As film distributor • She Shoulda Said No! (previously ''Marijuana, the Devil's Weed, The Devil's Weed, Wild Weed, The Story of Lila Leeds and Her Exposé of the Marijuana Racket'') (1949) • Monika, the Story of a Bad Girl (original title Sommaren med Monika, later re-issued by others in full as Summer with Monika) (1949) • Delinquent Angels (1951) • The Best is Yet to Come (1951) • Karamoja (1954) • ''Kipling's Women'' (1961) • Kwaheri (1961) • Five Minutes to Love (previously The Rotten Apple, It Only Takes Five Minutes) (1963) • ''Uncle Tom's Cabin'' (1970) originally released in Europe in 1965 • Redheads vs. Blondes (undated) producer (1953) Stage • French Follies ==References==