Babies for Sale

Ironically Babies For Sale had some potential of being a fairly good feature. Only the skill and likability of the cast keep this film at an average level. Nobody's fault really, the Code made it impossible to make a decent feature film on a very touchy topic.

The film is about the black market baby adoption racket where reporter Glenn Ford writes a story that there is one. Which brings out all the charities that deal with adoptions, the good and bad who succeed in getting Ford fired. Ford does not give up and starts his own investigation with the help of some concerned friends, including a few he makes along the way.

The Code had every one of the women in the home in question either a widow or one who was married, but the husband split, everything but actual unwed mothers. That had to be because the Code would not have an unwed mother shown to be of good character. Of course abortion was not even hinted at, but you can bet that the villain of the piece would have been doing that as well as he was making money every which way in his home for pregnant women.

The best thing this film has going for it is the portrayal of Miles Mander and his nurse Ratched assistant Georgia Caine as the ones who run the adoption racket from the home for pregnant women they run. Mander is one elegant slimeball, he charges the women a fee to give up their kids when they enter, keeps them as slaves practically while there, collects on the other end from prospective adoptive parents. I don't doubt he would have done illegal abortions without too much care for the life of the mothers and in 1940 abortion was strictly illegal.

Two things unravel his racket. The first is when he passes off what is described and you have to read between the lines as Down's Syndrome kid to John Qualen and his wife. When Qualen watches his wife jump in front of a subway train with the kid it was the most shocking moment of the film. He points Ford in the direction of Mander.

The second is when Mander has a rush order for a baby from a really wealthy couple and steals Rochelle Hudson's baby just born and fakes an adoption without her consent and tells her the baby died. As I said that oily British charm is played against type much like when he played Giles Conover in one of the Sherlock Holmes film series.

Ford and Hudson were a pair of attractive and winning leads. But Mander owns what could have been a far better film had the Code allowed for more frankness.

The start of this movie tells the audience that although there are thousands of legitimate adoption agencies around the country who do a wonderful service to the mothers and families involved, there are also fraudulent organizations that actually sell children to adopting parents. It's terrible, but it did (and does) happen, and in 1940, Hollywood decided to take a stand and show this cautionary tale.

In Babies for Sale, reporter Glenn Ford writes a story about an adoption agency that sells babies. He gets fired because of backlash from doctors, and he decides to find out the truth on his own time. Meanwhile, Rochelle Hudson is a poor, young widow who has come to a clinic run by Miles Mander, She believes it to be a kind shelter that takes care of women when they have their babies and finds them good homes. She starts doubting the good reputation when the other pregnant women tell her stories about how things are really run there. Will Rachel escape in time before she has her child (which she wants to keep, unlike most of the other girls there) or will Glenn find and bust the racket himself?

Although short in running time, this movie packs a punch and features an awful lot of information. It also shows young women walking around in loose smocks, which is the closest to showing pregnant bellies that the Production Code would allow at that time. It's sad that some many women were tricked, and it probably continues to happen, but at least movies like this can make people aware and wary.

"Babies For Sale" is a bit salacious, but still a terrific B-movie. Now B-movies often have come to mean sub-par to many but a B is far different. Sure, some were very poor but some others prove that just because a film has a low budget and short run time does NOT mean it can't be very entertaining. You see, the Bs served a purpose--they were meant as a second feature in a double-feature. This did NOT mean they needed to be bad or even average!

Glenn Ford plays a reporter who writes a story about black market babies--kids available from disreputable adoption agencies for a price. However, his editor receives a lot of heat for the story and demands Ford writes a retraction. Instead, he quits and decides to investigate further and prove the story is true. The trail leads to one of the instigators of the crusade against the reporter--a real scum-bag with no scruples whatsoever! At the same time, a young mother-to-be is in trouble---her husband has died and she's alone. She goes to the agency not to have the child adopted but for a place to stay--which they promise her. However, they have no intention of letting her keep her baby and plan on adopting it out to some rich folks. How they plan on getting away with this and how it all ends, you'll have to see for yourself.

While I do agree with the other review that the film isn't 100% frank (none of the mothers in this place seem to have illegitimate kids--which seems ridiculous), the story is very tight, exciting and, at times, quite moving. To me, it's a great example of how to do a B-exposee film--and one that seems underrated.

"Babies for Sale" is a B movie, a very early Glenn Ford film, from 1940, produced by Columbia. This type of movie was often used to train up and coming stars and to see if they caught on with the public.

Ford plays investigative reporter Steve Burton who wants to write about the illegal baby racket, where unscrupulous "charities" sell babies for cash. His editor gets a lot of pressure when the story is published because adoption agencies think it's a bad reflection on them. When asked to print a retraction, Burton quits.

He eventually gets onto an illegal baby racket headed up by an unscrupulous doctor (Miles Mander). A young widow, Ruth Williams (Rochelle Hudson), has gone to his agency for a place to stay until her baby is born, not realizing her chances of getting out of there with her baby are next to nothing.

They pressure her to sign a release, but she refuses. After her baby is born, she is told her baby died. With the help of another woman, she gets away and is approached by Burton. A recently-released woman (the one who helped her initially) joins in the investigation with Ruth and Burton.

These exposes were often over the top, and this one is no exception. However, it tells a human story with sympathetic characters. Ford is 24 years old and darkly handsome, with that beautiful smile, and despite some personal difficulties -- and interrupting his career for World War II -- he went on to a long career until his retirement in 1991. Rochelle Hudson is very sympathetic as a young mother who is certain her baby is not dead.

As a couple of reviews pointed out, apparently there were no illegitimate babies born in the United States at that time. If there had been unwed mothers in the film, I suppose they would have been depicted as sluts, otherwise the Hayes office wouldn't have allowed it.

Still, it's a good, well-acted film.