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 film's original negative was lost in the Fox vault fire of 1937.[6]

The Birth of a Baby
Directed byA. E. Christie
Written byBurke Symon
Arthur Jarrett
Produced byJack H. Skirball
Starring
CinematographyGeorge Webber
Production
companies
Christie Productions
The American Committee on Maternal Welfare, Inc.
Distributed bySpecial Pictures Corporation
Release date
1938 (1938)
Running time
72:00
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish

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.[8]

References
  1. "The Birth of a Baby (1938)". Turner Classic Movies. Retrieved December 15, 2015.
  2. 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.
  3. "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. open access
  4. 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.
  5. The AFI Catalog of Feature Films:..The Birth of a Baby Retrieved November 20, 2016
  6. "'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.
  7. 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. S2CID 191794984.
  8. 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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