The Birth of a Baby
The Birth of a Baby is a 1938 American educational film about childbearing.[1][2][3][4] It was directed by famed Canadian producer of silent shorts Al Christie.[5] The film stars Eleanore King, Richard Gordon, Ruth Matteson and Josephine Dunn. The original negative was lost in the Fox vault fire of 1937.[6]
| The Birth of a Baby | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | A. E. Christie |
| Produced by | Jack H. Skirball |
| Written by | Burke Symon Arthur Jarrett |
| Starring |
|
| Cinematography | George Webber |
Production company | Christie Productions The American Committee on Maternal Welfare, Inc. |
| Distributed by | Special Pictures Corporation |
Release date | 1938 |
Running time | 72:00 |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
Cast
- Eleanore King as Mary Burgess
- Richard Gordon as Dr. Wilson
- Ruth Matteson as Julia Norton
- Josephine Dunn as Mrs. Bromley
- William Post Jr. as John Burgess
- Frederica Going as Mrs. Perry
- Helen Hawley as Mrs. Burgess
- Kathleen Comegys as Mrs. Wilson
- Robert Ober as Mr. Case
- Edith Gresham as Mrs. Case
- Walter Gilbert as Mr. Perry
Censorship
The film featured scenes of actual childbirth and this caused issues for the Hays Office. The filmmakers tried to get around the need for a Seal of Approval from the Hays Office by appealing directly to local and state censorship boards for approval to show the film in mainstream theaters.[7][8] The film was banned in New York State in 1939 by a court ruling that scenes of childbirth were too indecent for public entertainment.
References
- "The Birth of a Baby (1938)". Turner Classic Movies. Retrieved December 15, 2015.
- Sartain, Geraldine (November 1938). "The Cinema Explodes the Stork Myth". The Journal of Educational Sociology. 12 (3): 142–146. doi:10.2307/2261881. JSTOR 2261881.
- "Regent Theatre To Show "The Birth of a Baby"". The Ottawa Journal. Ottawa, Canada. June 9, 1942. p. 15. Retrieved December 15, 2015 – via Newspapers.com.
- Ooten, Melissa (2014). Race, Gender, and Film Censorship in Virginia, 1922–1965. Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books. pp. 153–155. ISBN 9780739190296. OCLC 892878763. Retrieved December 15, 2015.
- The AFI Catalog of Feature Films:..The Birth of a Baby Retrieved November 20, 2016
- "'Life' banned for "Birth of a Baby" pictures". Motion Picture Herald. 131 (3): 18. April 16, 1938. Archived from the original on April 27, 2016. Retrieved July 9, 2020.
- Strassfeld, Benjamin (2013-08-18). "A Difficult Delivery: Debating the Function of the Screen and Educational Cinema through The Birth of a Baby (1938)". The Velvet Light Trap. 72 (1): 44–57. doi:10.7560/VLT7205. ISSN 1542-4251.
- Kirby, David A. (September 2017). "Regulating cinematic stories about reproduction: pregnancy, childbirth, abortion and movie censorship in the US, 1930–1958". The British Journal for the History of Science. 50 (3): 451–472. doi:10.1017/S0007087417000814. ISSN 0007-0874. PMID 28923130.
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