Marian Rose White

I saw the movie obce and then spent 20 years looking for it! Wonderful movie!!!!

I came across this movie while channel surfing one night on a Cable station that runs mostly infomercials and "Love That Bob" reruns. This movie has been poorly preserved or was cheaply shot to begin with. The scenes, including the sunny outdoor ones, are very very dark. The interiors for some scenes can barely be made out. The sound track is corrupted. I kept watching because one of the shadows seemed to resemble Valerie Perrine. She wasn't in shadow at the time, but the poor quality of the projection made her appear very dark. Nancy Cartwright (more known for her cartoon voices; most notably Bart Simpson's) stars as Marion Rose White. Marion's father has died and her mother (Valerie Perrine) has difficulty handling Marion. Marion's near blindness makes her clumsy and she is extremely awkward in any situation thus getting her kicked out of all schools -- public and parochial. In desperation, Mom has Marion committed to a school for the feeble-minded. Katharine Ross is a nurse who sees immediately that Marion is quite intelligent. She recognizes Marion's abilities, but is unable to save her from the harshness of the institution.

I was around 10 when this came out. I remember the subject matter really moved me (at least enough to remember the film 25 years later.) I would love to see it as an adult. I can't critique it fairly, but I would recommend it. Years ago, I tracked down Nancy Cartwright and sent her an email about this. She was very kind and we wrote back and forth several times. Although the details are sketchy, I remember she'd said that something good had come from this film. Something like they stopped doing a certain horrible procedure on the patients housed in state mental institutions. Lobotomies or something, I can't remember for sure. But it's cool to know that the film made a difference in something important, even if I can't remember exactly what it is.

About 10 years ago I saw this movie as part of a College course on the impact of Darwin. Natural Selection led to the idea of Eugenics, sterilizing the unfit, unpopular since WWII because it was the centerpiece of Nazi ideology. This movie is about Eugenics in America before that. Of course, it is wrapped in a made for TV package but the nastiness of Eugenics comes through. Notable for being based on semi-forgotten American History, other than that its average made for TV.

This was based on a true story and was to deal with mental patients who were fixed to never have offspring. I read an article about Ms. White and what occurred to her. She said she regretted never repairing the damage with her mother, who had institutionalized her. What I recall of it was Marion Rose White, as portrayed by Nancy Cartwright. She had killer lines throughout the entire film. When the man in charge of the hospital is trying to lure Marion out of a locked room where she has gone with a pair of scissors, he promises her "a special treat". Marion finally emerges when kind nurse Katherine Ross is threatened with being fired. Marion sees a straight-jacket held by an orderly and replies "Is this your special treat?" the supervisor asks Marion would she want to have children like this as he points at mongoloids around her. She answers what if she did? That wasn't his decision to make.

Another standout moment is when Marion is thrown in the padded cell with Black Out, the mean nurse's form of punishment. Black Out is an obviously deranged black woman prone to uncontrollable violence. Marion breaks out into song. "But we'll travel along, singing a song, side by side," sparing herself what could have been a severe beating, much to mean nurse's surprise later on.

Valerie Perrine brings Marion a doll after Marion's surgery to sterilize her. Marion looks at the doll and says "You take away my babies, and bring me this?" She then throws the doll and orders her mother out of the room.

Marion is doped up to make her fail her evaluation (She is shown an illustration of an umbrella and asked what it is for. She replies to catch the rain in.) I will never forget Katherine Ross kicking that mop bucket later on.