All Mine to Give

All Mine to Give (British title: The Day They Gave Babies Away) is a 1957 Technicolor melodrama film directed by Allen Reisner and starring Glynis Johns, Cameron Mitchell, and Rex Thompson. When first one parent, then the other dies, six children have to look after themselves in the Western United States of the mid-19th century.

All Mine to Give
Directed byAllen Reisner
Produced bySam Wiesenthal
Written byDale Eunson (novel)
Screenplay byDale Eunson
Katherine Albert
Based onThe Day They Gave Babies Away (novel)
Cosmopolitan (1946)
StarringGlynis Johns
Cameron Mitchell
Rex Thompson
Narrated byRex Thompson
Music byMax Steiner
CinematographyWilliam V. Skall
Edited byBettie Mosher
Production
company
Distributed byUniversal-International
Release date
  • November 13, 1957 (1957-11-13) (Premiere-Oshkosh, WI)[1]
Running time
100-103 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish

This story is based on a true-life story set in Wisconsin, based on an article "The Day They Gave Babies Away" by Dale Eunson and his wife Katherine Albert, which first appeared in the December 1946 issue of Cosmopolitan.[2]

A year later, the story would be published as a book with the same title. The TV version The Day They Gave Babies Away, starring Brandon deWilde, aired on the CBS anthology show Climax! on December 22, 1955.

Eunson and his wife Katherine also went on to write the screenplay for the movie adaptation.[3][4]

The exteriors of the film were filmed in Big Bear, California, Idyllwild, California and Mount Hood, Oregon.

Plot

Robert and Mamie Eunson (Cameron Mitchell and Glynis Johns) are Scots who have just landed in America (the year is 1856), having been invited there by Mamie's uncle. They arrive in the tiny logging village of Eureka, Wisconsin only to be informed that the uncle died when his cabin was incinerated in a house fire. After starting out alone on the task of rebuilding, the Eunsons are assisted by the friendly locals - who show-up en masse - in reconstructing the house and Robert takes to tipping timber.

Mamie is heavily pregnant upon their reaching Eureka; she delivers baby Robbie (Rex Thompson) soon after the cabin is completed. Robert first works for a logging camp as a lumberjack. He eventually wins over Tom Cullen (Alan Hale) after winning an impromptu fist fight with the cruel Irish-American lumber-camp boss. Later Robert starts a successful boat-building business and Mamie gives birth to five more children: Jimmy (Stephen Wootton), Kirk (Butch Bernard), Annabelle (Patty McCormack), Elizabeth (Yolanda White), and Jane (Terry Ann Ross).

The Eunsons are prospering and happy until little Kirk is diagnosed with diphtheria. Mamie and Kirk are quarantined while Robert takes the other children away. The boy recovers, but the goodbye kiss Kirk gave his Dadda before his departure proves fatal, and Robert succumbs. Mamie takes to working as a seamstress and Robbie becomes the man of the house. Things stabilize, but only briefly: tired and work-worn, Mamie contracts typhoid. Knowing she will not survive, she charges Robbie, her eldest, with finding good homes for his siblings, with families that have children, so they will not be lonely.

After Mamie's death, some of the townspeople wish to decide right away where the children should go. Robbie and Jimmy ask for one more day, Christmas, together. The townspeople agree. However, Robbie has a plan. He makes a list of families that would be appropriate, and one by one, delivers his sisters to the homes he has chosen, realizing that they are unlikely to be turned down on Christmas. Jimmy takes Kirk to his new home. Stoic and resigned during the process, Robbie finally breaks down when he is alone and sees the tree outside the homestead where his father had carved the names of all of the children into the bark.

Finally, Jimmy and Robbie say an unsaid good-bye to each other and their home. Baby Jane is the last to be handed over — Robbie stands at the door of a house and asks the woman who answers "Please, ma'am, I was wondering if you'd care to have my sister." Then he bravely goes off alone to work at the logging camp.

Cast

See also

References
  1. "All Mine to Give: Detail View". American Film Institute. Retrieved June 2, 2014.
  2. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2012-04-07. Retrieved 2011-12-18.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  3. All Mine to Give (1958) - Notes - TCM.com
  4. All Mine to Give (1958) - Articles - TCM.com
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.