Onde estão meus filhos?

Quite apart from being one of the few chances to see a Tyrone Power film (father, not son); this Lois Weber film is a powerful anti-abortion piece - albeit one which is clogged with concerns around birth control and what looks to be misguided focus on the process of eugenics (i.e. determining strong genes and background before having children).

DA Richard Walton has always wanted children and cannot understand why his wife (played by the real-life Mrs Power, Helen Riaume) fails to conceive. Of course as we quickly find out, she has sent many unwanted children back to the portal of heaven where they wait to be called, by having numerous abortions and arranging for her friends to do the same, including the lazy social butterfly Mrs Carlo (Marie Walcamp).

There are three plot strands here - one concerning a progressive doctor (C Norman Hammond) who wishes to teach the poor about birth control and who is being prosecuted for obscenity; one concerning a virginal housemaid's daughter (Rena Rogers) who is seduced by Mr Walton's brother-in-law (William J Hope), with tragic consequences; and one about the trips to the abortion clinic of Dr Malfit (Juan de la Cruz) which are commonplace to Mrs Walton and her set.

Intercut with these stories are sights of the children waiting to be called into the womb - the unwanted as well as the wanted. This is perhaps the most artificial part of the film as the gates of heaven open and close to allow children to be called to earth or to return again to the portal of the unwanted. It works but looks rather old fashioned these days.

The ending is very moving, however, as Mr and Mrs Walton, knowing she is now unable to have children, are surrounded by the ghosts of their unborn as they descend into old age.

A preachy film but a powerful one. Amazing to think that items tackled here, over 90 years ago, could not be touched on again until the second half of the twentieth century.

This film is most certainly not feminist but it was a courageous film to have made in 1910. Censorship already existed very strongly in the US and the idea that it only came in with the Hays Code in the thirties is a complete myth.

The film did have its imitators in the next year or so (a girl dies after an abortion in Enlighten thy Daughter 1917) and the subject would occasionally be raised rather obliquely in later films (The Road to Ruin 1928, 1934 and Ann Vickers 1933) or treated salaciously in exploitation films (Street Corner 1948) but it would not be until the 1960s that it would again become possible to treat such subjects seriously in US films (and even then it is primarily British rather than US films that come to mind). Plans to make a remake of Weber's film in 1936 had to be cancelled. As late as 1956, the revised Hays code insisted that "the subject of abortion shall be discouraged, shall never be more than suggested, and when referred to shall be condemned. It must never be treated lightly, or made the subject of comedy. Abortion shall never be shown explicitly or by inference, and a story must not indicate that an abortion has been performed, the word "abortion" shall not be used."

Weber's consideration of the question is entirely serious and all the aspects she considers, whatever one's opinion about voluntary miscarriage being legal of which there was not even the remotest possibility in 1916, remain entirely valid. Sometimes today the belief that women should have choice in these matters becomes confused with a vague idea that abortion is somehow completely problem-free, which it most certainly is not.

And Weber is entirely to be commended for taking up so strongly the case for birth control (an equally taboo subject)and against the 1873 Comstock Law that prevented discussion of it. This was also the subject of an unofficial sequel to this film (lost) called The Hand that Rocks the Cradle, in which she herself acted (and is the one arrested for promoting birth control). The film was, however, rather overshadowed by the appearance of Margaret Sanger's own film Birth Control even though the latter was effectively banned by the censors.

The film played to packed houses in sophisticated urban centres and won much critical praise because of its evident earnestness and religious iconography (one southern US newspaper described it as "one of the most remarkable preachments yet filmed") but it did also attract adverse criticism but it had to be shown in different (cut) versions in different parts of the country, and was particularly badly butchered (although not banned as is sometimes claimed) in Weber's home-state of Pennsylvania.

There are also some signs of a backlash. Photoplay later claimed that the films had spawned "a filthy host of nasty-minded imitators" and in 1917 when Essanay brought out a filmed called "Where is My Mother?" (evidently adapting the title of Weber's film) in its "Do the Children Count?" series, a particularly prissy reviewer in Moving Picture World praised it precisely because it avoided "distasteful reference to birth control and sex problems".

This is a heavy-handed, didactic melodrama that nevertheless doesn't descend to mere propaganda. Although a eugenics perspective is introduced in the beginning it is never explored even though it could have presented an excellent opportunity for conflict in Tyrone Power's character and situation. Most of the rest of the film is trite in its portrayal of a pristine young woman whose character and life are destroyed by an evil, sneering, all-but-drooling villain. Missing is an exploration of how such a young woman could succumb to this man. Instead, much time is spent in melodramatic mugging and obvious titles. Too bad, because the final scenes show brilliant early cinematic narration, making all the film's points more dramatically than the entire rest of the film.

Quite interesting film given its time and subject matter: birth control and abortion in pre-WW I America. There's even some mention of Eugenics, which was quite a popular theory of that time. I will avoid any spoilers but the movie is pro-birth control and very heavy-handily anti-abortion. But, inadvertently, the moral case is made for safe and legal abortions!

I saw this silent movie late last evening on Turner Classic Movies. It surpassed my expectations (especially being that there was no sound and that it was made in 1916!); I could not take my eyes away. The interesting concept of "the place where unborn children are" was very powerful. The emotions portrayed in this movie very very strong; excellent acting by all. It is a movie that I will never forget, am still thinking about it today-it was that moving!