BRAND NEW LIFE
US, 1973, 75 minutes, Colour.
Cloris Leachman, Martin Balsam, Marge Redmond, Gene Nelson, Mildred Dunnock, Wilfrid Hyde White.
Directed by Sam O’ Steen.
A Brand New Life is one of the earliest television movies from the early to mid-70s. During this period, quite a number of social themes which used to be seen on the big screen were adapted for home viewing.
This film focuses on a couple who have been married for eighteen years and are expecting a child. The mother is an opera singer and has to balance career with motherhood. The various options are presented, including the possibility of an abortion.
The film also focuses on the opinions of doctors and nurses as well as advice from friends. There are also parallels with married couples and their facing the realities of pregnancy.
Cloris Leachman won an Emmy award for her performance in this film. She receives strong support from Martin Balsam as her husband. A number of veterans appear including Gene Nelson, Mildred Dannock and Wilfrid Hyde White. Direction is by Sam O’Steen?, a regular editor on television films and director of a number of these films including Look What Happened to Rosemary’s Baby.
1. The quality of this telemovie? Its brevity, its reliance on techniques to communicate to the home audience?
2. The themes presented in such a telemovie? The frank approach to pregnancy, abortion. marriage? A reflection of the frankness of the seventies? How well presented , how well explored?
3. How credible was the plot, the characters? Situations and characters with which a home audience could identify? Home, family, pregnancy, unwanted pregnancies, birth, career?
4. How particularly American was the film? Characters and their environment? The approach to the moral questions? The world of San Francisco? Affluence, work and careers, money? The way of life and moral standards of the seventies? The various couples who ware presented. attitude to marriage and family, to age etc.? Would the film have been presented differently in another national environment?
5. How well did the film treat pregnancy as its theme? The shock value to Victoria and her husband? The attitudes of both parents to Sarah and her husband? To Mr Berger, to Sarah and Bert? Audience sympathies as regards Vicki and her pregnancy at the age of forty?
6. How well were the attitudes to the whole illustrated by the sequence with Eleanor and her husband and the revelation at the meal? Their varying reactions? The importance of Vicki’s going to visit Eleanor and the discussion of how good a mother Eleanor was and her attitude towards her daughter and bringing her up? The contrast with the talk of both husbands? the yacht and their discussion about responsibilities and bringing up a family? The importance of Vicki’s visit to her mother and the long tracking sequence where she wheeled her mother and heard about the unwanted pregnancy? Audience response to this? empathy to Vicki’s reaction to her mother? the question of unwanted pregnancy and allowing the child to be born and the subsequent emotional affection? The contrast with the reaction of Sarah and Bert to the pregnancy, the fact that they were not interested in natural childbirth? The reaction of the opera star and her wanting to be at home for her children? Mr Berger and her co-workers?
7. How attractive a character was Vicki? Her husband? The scenes of the happiness, at home, his concern about her illness, the two of them at work, their love for one another? Vicki’s visit to the doctor, her reaction to the doctor’s news? Her fear of the pregnancy, disbelief, worry about her age and health of the baby, her career? Her husband and his delight and wanting to have the baby?
8. How welt did the film illustrate Vicki’s fears and make them real? Mr Berger and his arrangements for her career, her visit to the clinic and the frank discussions about the abortion and the nature of choices? When did Vicki make her choice to go through with the pregnancy?
9. The balance of career, her background in opera and love for it, her business skills and dealing with people?
10. The film’s build-up about the pregnancy, the visits to the clinic, discussions with Sarah, sharing the experience with her husband watching the film about birth etc.?
11. The dramatic impact of Sarah and the death of her child? Vicki’s reaction and her comfort of Sarah and Bert? The repercussions for herself?
12. The party and the transition from that to the build-up of the birth pangs? Audience anticipation of the birth? What stage of sympathy had we reached by the time the baby was to be born? A collage of mother father and child in the various photos and this as what we were left with? How valuable?
13. The importance of the themes that were presented and explored, the wisdom that was shown in exploring the various angles of pregnancy in a modern world?
