Test Tube Babies | |
Director: | W. Merle Connell |
Producer: | George Weiss |
Cinematography: | Irving Akers |
Editing: | Nathan Cy Braunstein Sheldon Nemeyer |
Studio: | Screen Classics |
Distributor: | Screen Classics |
Runtime: | 70 minutes |
Country: | United States |
Language: | English |
Test Tube Babies, also known as Blessed Are They (American reissue title), Sins of Love (American reissue title) and The Pill (America reissue title, recut version), is a 1948 American independent exploitation film directed by W. Merle Connell and produced by George Weiss. It is a narrative about artificial insemination with scenes of nudity and sexual promiscuity included. One scene shows the male lead character's sperm viewed through a microscope.
A young married couple find themselves drifting apart. Wife Cathy Bennet (Dorothy Duke) finds temporary pleasure at swinging parties or in the arms of another man, Frank Grover (John Michael). Husband George Bennet (William Thomason) confronts his wife about the widening chasm between them; she tells him she feels they are somehow incomplete without children. She undergoes testing to see why she hasn't conceived. George, who has accompanied her, is asked to also undergo testing and is found to be the problem: he is sterile. Physician Dr. Wright (Timothy Farrell) suggests artificial insemination using a sperm donor. This proves successful and the Bennetts begin a new and happy phase of their marriage.