Mildred Horn

Mildred Horn was a film critic and screenwriter, best known for her work on the Kroger Babb exploitation film Mom and Dad.

Horn was born in Erie, Pennsylvania and studied at Academy High School. She later moved to Indianapolis, Indiana, where she became a film critic for a local paper.

When Horn was sent to review Kroger Babb's production of Child Bride, she was horrified that such a "cheap, crude, mislabeled morality play would be shown in a major Indiana family theater". In Horn's opinion the film was material for a shoddy sideshow tent at some backwoods county fair. Babb later met with Horn, instead of writing a scathing review, Horn and Babb entered into a personal and professional relationship that would last forty years until his death in 1983. They enjoyed a common-law marriage after 1944, only making it official when Babb's first wife Toby consented to a divorce in the late 60s.

Together with Babb and Jack Jossey they formed "Hygienic Productions" (later renamed "Hallmark Productions"), and she wrote the screenplay for their best known production, Mom and Dad. The film was presented in a unique way, and included lectures and the sale of hygiene books that Horn wrote.

Horn also wrote the screenplays for Why Men Leave Home, a film about female beauty, and Prince of Peace, a passion play. and now resides in Palm Springs.

Selected works

Films

• Mom and Dad, screenplay (1945)
• The Prince of Peace aka The Lawton Story, screenplay (1949)
• Why Men Leave Home aka Secrets of Beauty, screenplay (1951)

Books

• Man and Boy (1944)
• Woman and Girl (1944)