Tomorrow's Children

Tomorrow's Children (1934)

The most daring, sensational drama ever filmed!

Young Alice Mason wishes to start a family, but because her own has been deemed "defective" by the state health authorities—her parents are lazy alcoholics who continue breeding, and her siblings are disabled, have mental problems or are imprisoned—she is ordered by a court to undergo sterilization so that her family's "defective genes" won't be passed on to any further. Her boyfriend Jim and a kindly priest search desperately for a way to stop the forced surgery before it's too late.

Date of release
1934-07-02
TMDB
5.0 / 10 (9)
Runtime
50m
Genres
Drama
Director
Crane Wilbur

Casting

Interesting facts

Tomorrow's Children, also known as The Unborn in the United Kingdom, is a 1934 American drama film written by Wallace Thurman and directed by Crane Wilbur. The film is critical of the eugenic policies in practice in the United States of the era. The film was widely deemed "immoral" and "tending to incite crime".

Production

The film was the sound film directorial debut of Crane Wilbur. Its subject matter was considered unacceptable in the film industry of the time, and did not meet the standards of the Association of Motion Picture Producers. Instead of being backed by this organization, Foy Productions was forced to present the film to state censorship boards located in New York, Ohio, Kansas, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Maryland.

The film received negative attention for its prominent themes of genetic alcoholism, deformed offspring, and sterilization. The film was approved only in Pennsylvania and Ohio. Since Tomorrow’s Children deliberately ignored the standard rules of the industry of leaving these controversial topics alone, the film was denied its license and there was a lot of effort devoted to the delaying of its production.

The original decision to ban the film came from censor Irwin Esmond and Dr. Frank Graves in the State Education department. The Appellate Division of the Supreme Court backed Esmond and Graves with three votes in favor of the ban and two against it. Years later in 1938, Foy Productions urged the US appeals court to revisit Tomorrow’s Children, especially in New York.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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