By Frank Miller
The Very Idea
Brief Synopsis
A eugenics expert uses science to help his sister and her husband have a child.
Cast & Crew
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Richard Rosson
Director
Sally Blane
Nora
Jeanne De Bard
Dorothy Green
Allen Kearns
Gilbert Goodhue
Doris Eaton
Edith Goodhue
Theodore Von Eltz
George Green
Film Details
Genre
Comedy
Release Date
Sep
15,
1929
Premiere Information
not available
Production Company
RKO Productions
Country
United States
Technical Specs
Duration
1h 5m
Film Length
6,139-6,150ft
(7 reels)
Synopsis
Alan Camp, author of a book on eugenics, urges his sister, Edith Goodhue, who has no children, to let him produce a eugenic child for her and her husband, Gilbert, and they agree. Alan chooses Joe, his chauffeur, and Nora, the Goodhue maid, as the parents, offering the sweethearts $15,000 if they deliver a child within a year. The Goodhues depart for California and return a year later to find their home converted into a nursery but with no child; after much confusion, Joe and Nora appear with their baby and refuse to surrender it, as they have been married. In desperation, Alan dispatches Joe to the orphanage to obtain another baby, but the baby chosen is totally unsuited to the Goodhues; Alan is about to have the nursery removed when Mrs. Goodhue reveals that she and Gilbert are to have a child of their own.
Director
Richard Rosson
Director
Cast
Sally Blane
Nora
Jeanne De Bard
Dorothy Green
Allen Kearns
Gilbert Goodhue
Doris Eaton
Edith Goodhue
Theodore Von Eltz
George Green
Olive Tell
Marion Green
Hugh Trevor
Joe Garvin
Frank Craven
Alan Camp
Adele Watson
Miss Duncan
Crew
Film Details
Genre
Comedy
Release Date
Sep
15,
1929
Premiere Information
not available
Production Company
RKO Productions
Country
United States
Technical Specs
Duration
1h 5m
Film Length
6,139-6,150ft
(7 reels)
Articles
The Very Idea -
For its fourth release, the still-young RKO picture chose to adapt William LeBaron's 1917 Broadway flop about the kinder, gentler side of eugenics. A popular field of study in the early 20th century, eugenics fell out of favor by the end of World War II, with revelations of its use by the Nazis to eliminate what they considered "undesirables." This comedy focuses instead on what were called positive eugenics, the strengthening of the species through the matching of people based on their genes. Character comedian Frank Craven stars (under his own direction) as a eugenics expert who wants to help his sister and her husband become parents. Since the usual methods have failed, he hires his chauffer and their maid to create a child, only to have the experimental subjects fall in love and decide to keep the child. The plot would have been impossible five years later, with the arrival of strict Production Code enforcement, and may have been too much for audiences even in 1929, when the film flopped. Yet it provides a rare glimpse of Craven, who usually played supporting roles on film, in the kind of leading part that had made him a star on Broadway, often directing himself in his own scripts.
By Frank Miller
By Frank Miller
The Very Idea -
For its fourth release, the still-young RKO picture chose to adapt William LeBaron's 1917 Broadway flop about the kinder, gentler side of eugenics. A popular field of study in the early 20th century, eugenics fell out of favor by the end of World War II, with revelations of its use by the Nazis to eliminate what they considered "undesirables." This comedy focuses instead on what were called positive eugenics, the strengthening of the species through the matching of people based on their genes. Character comedian Frank Craven stars (under his own direction) as a eugenics expert who wants to help his sister and her husband become parents. Since the usual methods have failed, he hires his chauffer and their maid to create a child, only to have the experimental subjects fall in love and decide to keep the child. The plot would have been impossible five years later, with the arrival of strict Production Code enforcement, and may have been too much for audiences even in 1929, when the film flopped. Yet it provides a rare glimpse of Craven, who usually played supporting roles on film, in the kind of leading part that had made him a star on Broadway, often directing himself in his own scripts.
By Frank Miller
