Niece of a patent-medicine peddler, Hildegarde Stadie's life was a colorful tapestry woven from threads of unpredictability, as she traveled extensively across the United States with her uncle, selling his infamous cure-all, Tiger Fat, to the masses. At a precocious age, Hildegarde would often appear fully nude on stage, with a python draped elegantly around her shoulders, an experience that would later influence her scriptwriting for Narcotic (1933). In 1920, she tied the knot with Dwain Esper, a man who would later become notorious for producing exploitation films. When Dwain acquired a small studio facility in Los Angeles, California in 1930, the couple began churning out low-budget films from scripts penned by Hildegarde. Their collaborations yielded a string of bizarre and prurient films, such as Maniac (1934) and Marihuana (1936),which would leave many scratching their heads, wondering how a husband and wife with two children could have been responsible for such content.
Besides catering to the exploitation market, Hildegarde and Dwain also imported and re-released older films, including the cult classic Freaks (1932) directed by Tom Browning, and the Danish film Man's Way With Women (1934). Hildegarde typically handled relations with state censorship boards when their films came under fire from local morality squads, a task she undoubtedly viewed as a necessary evil. Interestingly, surviving regional censorship documents often addressed Hildegarde as "Mr. Hildegarde Esper", a testament to her no-nonsense approach to her work.
