By Violet LeVoit
A Child Is Born
Brief Synopsis
A pregnant prison inmate shares her problems with the patients in a maternity ward.
Cast & Crew
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Lloyd Bacon
Director
Geraldine Fitzgerald
Grace Sutton
Jeffrey Lynn
Jed Sutton
Gladys George
Florette [Laverne]
Gale Page
Miss Bowers
Spring Byington
Mrs. [Mamie] West
Film Details
Also Known As
Give Me a Child
Genre
Drama
Adaptation
Release Date
Jan
6,
1940
Premiere Information
Kansas City, Mo opening: 7 Dec 1939
Production Company
Warner Bros. Pictures, Inc.
Distribution Company
Warner Bros. Pictures, Inc.
Country
United States
Screenplay Information
Based on the play Life Begins by Mary McDougal Axelson (New York, 28 Mar 1932).
Technical Specs
Duration
1h 19m
Sound
Mono
Color
Black and White
Theatrical Aspect Ratio
1.37 : 1
Film Length
9 reels
Synopsis
Jed Sutton comes to the maternity ward of a large hospital to visit his wife Grace, a convicted murderess who has been released from prison only long enough to give birth to her child. Soon after, Mrs. Mamie West also arrives on the maternity floor to give birth to her seventh child, and is greeted by Miss Bowers, the head nurse. Before seeing his wife, Jed is called into consultation by Dr. Lee, who informs him that Grace is in a severely weakened condition. Grace's plight wins the sympathy of Miss Bowers, who smuggles Jed into see his wife, against the orders of the prison matron. Other patients in the ward are Florette Laverne, a vaudeville dancer who doesn't want her baby because her husband Harry has threatened to leave her and get a new partner for his act; Gladys Norton, an eighteen-year-old who is secretly married and fears the reaction of her mother; Mrs. Kempner, who desperately wants a child even though the doctors have told her that she can never bear one; and Mrs. Helen Banks, whose frantic husband Ringer paces the waiting room. When Florette receives a telegram from Harry notifying her that he has found a new partner and is leaving her, she decides to put her twin babies up for adoption. As Grace's condition worsens, she tells Jed that she no longer wants to live and asks him to care for their baby. Jed insists that his wife's life is more precious than that of his child, but when Dr. Lee is blinded in a laboratory accident, another doctor is assigned to the case and Grace instructs him to save the infant at any cost. Meanwhile, Florette experiences a change of heart and decides to keep her twins and Mrs. Kempner, who has lost her baby, offers to care for the children while Florette is on the road. Jed, informed that his wife has died in childbirth, is about to leave the hospital when Miss Bowers hands him his infant with a dying message from Grace that she wants her life to begin again in their baby.
Director
Lloyd Bacon
Director
Cast
Geraldine Fitzgerald
Grace Sutton
Jeffrey Lynn
Jed Sutton
Gladys George
Florette [Laverne]
Gale Page
Miss Bowers
Spring Byington
Mrs. [Mamie] West
Johnnie Davis
Ringer Banks
Henry O'neill
Dr. Lee
John Litel
Dr. Brett
Gloria Holden
Mrs. Kempner
Johnny Downs
Johnny Norton
Eve Arden
Miss Pinty
Fay Helm
The woman
Louis Jean Heydt
Mr.[Steve] Kempner
Nanette Fabares
Gladys Norton
Jean Sharon
Mrs. [Helen] Banks
Hobart Cavanaugh
Mr. [Herbie] West
George Irving
Dr. Cramm
Nella Walker
Mrs. Twitchell
Winifred Harris
Mrs. Holt
Esther Dale
Matron
Ed Gargan
Guard
Edgar Dearing
Sergeant
Marie Blake
Gladys
Maris Wrixon
Information girl
John Ridgely
Intern
Charles Marsh
Intern
De Wolfe Hopper
Intern
Carlyle Moore Jr.
Intern
Owen King
Interne
Sibyl Harris
Flower woman
Creighton Hale
Elevator operator
Buz Buckley
Little tot
George O'hanlon
Young husband
Garry Owen
Drugstore clerk
Sidney Bracy
Drugstore clerk
Jeffrey Sayre
Second clerk
Claude Wisberg
Messenger
Frank Mayo
Policeman
Dorothy Adams
Nurse
Frances Morris
Nurse
Marie Wells
Nurse
Georgia Caine
Mrs. Norton's mother
Virginia Brissac
Mr. Norton's mother
Georgia Cooper
Elderly lady
George Meeker
Mr. Harry Laverne
Crew
Milo Anderson
Gowns
Samuel Bischoff
Associate Producer
Leo F. Forbstein
Music Director
Hugo Friedhofer
Orchestra Arrangement
Jo Graham
Dialogue Director
John Hughes
Art Director
Jack Killifer
Film Editor
Charles Lang
Sound
Dick Mayberry
Assistant Director
Charles Rosher
Photography
Robert Rossen
Screenwriter
Jack Saper
Unit Manager
Dr. Leo Schulman
Technical Advisor
Evelyn Shepherd R.n.
Technical Advisor
Jack L. Warner
Company
Perc Westmore
Makeup
Film Details
Also Known As
Give Me a Child
Genre
Drama
Adaptation
Release Date
Jan
6,
1940
Premiere Information
Kansas City, Mo opening: 7 Dec 1939
Production Company
Warner Bros. Pictures, Inc.
Distribution Company
Warner Bros. Pictures, Inc.
Country
United States
Screenplay Information
Based on the play Life Begins by Mary McDougal Axelson (New York, 28 Mar 1932).
Technical Specs
Duration
1h 19m
Sound
Mono
Color
Black and White
Theatrical Aspect Ratio
1.37 : 1
Film Length
9 reels
Articles
A Child Is Born
No, it's not a religious Nativity epic, but instead what film historian Jeanine Basinger described as "a prenatal Grand Hotel" -- a maternity ward bustling with pregnant women and their colorful back stories. The mommies-to-be include an ailing female felon (Geraldine Fitzgerald) transferred from jail to deliver her kid, a six-time mother (Spring Byington) preparing for Baby Number Seven, a vaudeville hoofer (Gladys George) who worries the twins she's carrying will bust up the song-and-dance act she has with her husband, and a pregnant teen (Nanette Fabray) -- don't worry, Hays Office, she's secretly eloped! The film was banned in Ireland, New Zealand and British Columbia, on grounds that the dramatic perils endured by some of the women "might create fear in the minds of expectant mothers", but to modern eyes it's a window on another generation's childbirth rituals, with fathers shooed away from the delivery rooms by no-nonsense nurses, and cigarettes and liquor smuggled in as pre-delivery treats. Hollywood's squeamishness about pregnancy is also on full display, as evinced by the conspicuously flat-stomached cast.
By Violet LeVoit
By Violet LeVoit
A Child Is Born
No, it's not a religious Nativity epic, but instead what film historian Jeanine Basinger described as "a prenatal Grand Hotel" -- a maternity ward bustling with pregnant women and their colorful back stories. The mommies-to-be include an ailing female felon (Geraldine Fitzgerald) transferred from jail to deliver her kid, a six-time mother (Spring Byington) preparing for Baby Number Seven, a vaudeville hoofer (Gladys George) who worries the twins she's carrying will bust up the song-and-dance act she has with her husband, and a pregnant teen (Nanette Fabray) -- don't worry, Hays Office, she's secretly eloped! The film was banned in Ireland, New Zealand and British Columbia, on grounds that the dramatic perils endured by some of the women "might create fear in the minds of expectant mothers", but to modern eyes it's a window on another generation's childbirth rituals, with fathers shooed away from the delivery rooms by no-nonsense nurses, and cigarettes and liquor smuggled in as pre-delivery treats. Hollywood's squeamishness about pregnancy is also on full display, as evinced by the conspicuously flat-stomached cast.
By Violet LeVoit
Geraldine Fitzgerald (1913-2005)
Born in Dublin on November 24, 1913, Fitzgerald was educated for a time in a convent school in London. Back in her native Dublin, she happily accompanied her aunt, the Irish actress Shelah Richards, to a theater one afternoon when the director mistook her for an actress, and instructed her "to go backstage and change." An inauspicious start, but it gave her the acting bug. She made her stage debut in 1932 in Dublin's Gate Theater and later appeared in a few forgettable British films: Open All Night (1934), The Ace of Spades, Three Witnesses (both 1935). She made the trip across the Atlantic in 1938 to act with Orson Welles and his Mercury Theater, but agents from Warner Bros. quickly signed her and she was soon off to Hollywood.
She made her film debut in 1939 supporting Bette Davis in Dark Victory, but it was her performance in a second film later in the year that proved to be the most memorable of her career - the role of Isabella Linton in Wuthering Heights. She earned an Oscar® nomination for her turn and stardom should have been around the corner, but Fitzgerald's feuding with studio head Jack Warner (he refused to let her return to the New York stage and she would refuse parts that she thought were inferior) led to some lengthy suspensions of unemployment. Irregardless, Fitzgerald still had some shining moments at Warner Bros. the heady melodrama The Gay Sisters (1942); the superb espionage thriller Watch on the Rhine (1943); Robert Siodmak's terrific, noirish thriller The Strange Affair of Uncle Harry (1945); and a tough crime drama where she played opposite John Garfield Nobody Lives Forever (1946).
Fitzgerald returned to New York by the '50s, and found much work in many of the live television dramas that were so popular in the day: Goodyear Television Playhouse, Lux Video Theatre, Studio One, Schlitz Playhouse of Stars; and even some taped television shows: Naked City, Alfred Hitchcock Presents in between her stage demands.
She did return to the screen by the mid-'60s and proved herself a fine character actress in films like The Pawnbroker (1965); Rachel, Rachel (1968); Harry and Tonto (1974); a wonderfully memorable comic turn as Dudley Moore's feisty grandmother in Arthur (1981); and yet another noteworthy performance as Rose Kennedy in the acclaimed mini-series Kennedy (1983). She also appeared in a few television programs: St. Elswhere, Cagney & Lacey, and The Golden Girls before ill-health forced her to retire by the early '90s. Among the relatives that survive her are her son, director Michael Lindsay-Hogg (Brideshead Revisited; a daughter, Susan Scheftel; and her great-niece, the English actress Tara Fitzgerald.
by Michael "Mitch" Toole
Geraldine Fitzgerald (1913-2005)
Geraldine Fitzgerald, the Irish born actress who, long in America, distinguished herself as a young ingenue in film classics like Wuthering Heights and later as a first-rate character player in hits such as Arthur, died on July 16 in her Manhattan home, succumbing to a long battle with Alzheimer's disease.
She was 91.
Born in Dublin on November 24, 1913, Fitzgerald was educated for a time in a convent school in London.
Back in her native Dublin, she happily accompanied her aunt, the Irish actress Shelah Richards, to a theater one afternoon when the director mistook her for an actress, and instructed her "to go backstage and change." An inauspicious start, but it gave her the acting bug. She made her stage debut in 1932 in Dublin's Gate Theater and later appeared in a few forgettable British films: Open All Night (1934), The Ace of Spades, Three Witnesses (both 1935). She made the trip across the Atlantic in 1938 to act with Orson Welles and his Mercury Theater, but agents from Warner Bros. quickly signed her and she was soon off to Hollywood.
She made her film debut in 1939 supporting Bette Davis in Dark Victory, but it was her performance in a second film later in the year that proved to be the most memorable of her career - the role of Isabella Linton in Wuthering Heights. She earned an Oscar® nomination for her turn and stardom should have been around the corner, but Fitzgerald's feuding with studio head Jack Warner (he refused to let her return to the New York stage and she would refuse parts that she thought were inferior) led to some lengthy suspensions of unemployment. Irregardless, Fitzgerald still had some shining moments at Warner Bros. the heady melodrama The Gay Sisters (1942); the superb espionage thriller Watch on the Rhine (1943); Robert Siodmak's terrific, noirish thriller The Strange Affair of Uncle Harry (1945); and a tough crime drama where she played opposite John Garfield Nobody Lives Forever (1946).
Fitzgerald returned to New York by the '50s, and found much work in many of the live television dramas that were so popular in the day: Goodyear Television Playhouse, Lux Video Theatre, Studio One, Schlitz Playhouse of Stars; and even some taped television shows: Naked City, Alfred Hitchcock Presents in between her stage demands.
She did return to the screen by the mid-'60s and proved herself a fine character actress in films like The Pawnbroker (1965); Rachel, Rachel (1968); Harry and Tonto (1974); a wonderfully memorable comic turn as Dudley Moore's feisty grandmother in Arthur (1981); and yet another noteworthy performance as Rose Kennedy in the acclaimed mini-series Kennedy (1983). She also appeared in a few television programs: St.
Elswhere, Cagney & Lacey, and The Golden Girls before ill-health forced her to retire by the early '90s. Among the relatives that survive her are her son, director Michael Lindsay-Hogg (Brideshead Revisited; a daughter, Susan Scheftel; and her great-niece, the English actress Tara Fitzgerald.
by Michael "Mitch" Toole
Quotes
Trivia
The play opened on Broadway in New York City, New York, USA on 28 March 1932 but closed after only 8 performances. In the cast were Glenda Farrell, Mildred Dunnock and Frank Wilcox.
The film was rejected in Ireland, New Zealand and British Columbia because it might have created fear in expectant mothers. Scenes of expectant mothers experiencing labor pains, as well as scenes of actual or suggested childbirth were purposely omitted. In fact none of the expectant mothers even looked pregnant.
Notes
The working title of this picture was Give Me a Child. According to the MPAA/PCA Collection at the AMPAS Library, the film was rejected in Ireland, New Zealand and British Columbia because "it might create fear in the minds of expectant mothers" and because it misrepresented the facts of hospital management. In the United States, studio relations director Joseph I. Breen told Jack Warner to omit any scenes of the expectant mothers experiencing labor pains and any scenes of actual or suggested childbirth. This picture marked actress Jean Sharon's screen debut. Mary McDougal Axelson's play was first filmed by First National in 1932 under the title of Life Begins starring Loretta Young (see below).
