Kayfabe died for me in 1939
By Scott Keith on 22 July 2013
To follow up on a topic that was posted earlier, kayfabe died for me in 1939 when Mr. Moto exposed the wrestling business 2 minutes into "Danger Island". I often hear people speak as if the world only found out in the last 30-40 years that matches are fixed, but this clearly suggests that even back in the 1930's (and likely before that) the sophisticated crowd was already hip to what they were watching. I figured the BoD Squad might find it worth a quick look.
Peter Lorre is great and the Mr. Moto movies are actually pretty good, too. But yeah, the general public was pretty much onto wrestling from the start, it's not like it was some closely guarded secret that held until the 80s or whatever.