Is Your Daughter Safe

Production background

The film was created as a compilation of footage that was, in some cases, nearly fifteen years old, and included stock footage such as medical reels containing footage of venereal diseases and films depicting white slavery. The basic plot was a cautionary tale about a young woman's journey into prostitution and white slavery, but, like the other films of the era, the plot was secondary to the sexual content. Many of the presentations were introduced at the front door, with live nude women in glass booths at the entrances. Inside, the films were usually accompanied by a medical slideshow about venereal disease and a lecture from an alleged sexual education specialist. This was a typical presentation template for the time, and set an example for later exploiters.

In San Diego, Millard was forced to retitle his film Is Your Daughter Safe? to The Octopus in order to meet the demands of city officials who found the title objectionable. The film was described by Variety as "possibly the strongest and most dangerous" film of its kind at that point, but it still passed the standards of a group coordinated by the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America's Jason Joy, with the group initially stating that the movie taught "a very splendid lesson and that every girl over sixteen years of age ought to be compelled to see it." The MPPDA, surprised at the lack of a condemnation, was eventually successful in gaining the condemnations from various women's groups and succeeded in withdrawing the film from a number of theaters in the Northwestern United States, paving the way for further challenges to the genre. The success in San Diego lead to the film being censored or banned in a number of other communities as time progressed, including persuading a Main Street theater chain in Seattle, Washington to not run the film and drawing a condemnation for Is Your Daughter Safe? and a number of other similar films by the Motion Picture Theater Owners of America.

In spite of the controversy and censorship, however, some studies suggested that the film had a positive influence on youth. The Payne Fund interviewed a number of troubled teenagers about the films, and one interview cited Is Your Daughter Safe? as a movie she learned from, saying that it "taught [her] how to beware of boys." Millard also was not above corruption to get clearance, casting Chicago mayor William Hale Thompson in the film to ensure passage by the city's censors.