The film was created as a compilation of footage that was, in some cases, nearly 15 years old, and included stock footage such as medical reels containing footage of venereal diseases and films depicting white slavery. 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.
Hortense Petra's debut.
Distributed along with The Pitfalls of Passion (1927). Both were openly defiant, tawdry exploitation films about brothels, teenage pregnancy, birth control, white slavery (women lured into prostitution), and venereal disease-syphilis (all forbidden topics according to the Hays Office). They were circulated as road shows and exhibited to display nudity in the guise of educational and medical documentary films.
Producer S.S. Millard was forced to retitle his film to The Octopus in order to meet the demands of San Diego, Calif. 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 condemnation, was eventually successful in gaining the condemnations from various women's groups and succeeded in getting the film withdrawn from a number of theaters in the northwestern US, paving the way for further challenges to the genre.