Birthright

3074. BIRTHRIGHT (1951-USA). Here is an innovative and highly thought-provoking motion picture about the predicament of a Georgia farm family exposed to syphilis. It is an educational film turned into an exploitation show. The situation of the Lloyd family is presented with a frankness not seen in Hollywood movies and quite unusual for its time. The story opens one evening in the Lloyd’s chicken house. John Lloyd is upset to find that several of his baby chicks have died. For this reason his father-in-law makes him feel a failure. When John’s wife Liza sides with her parents, the distraught farmer gets into his truck and drives to a juke joint where he downs a few beers. There he meets a waitress named Nell with whom he has sexual relations later that night. The brief nude scene was probably inserted after production concluded. Following their fling, John sobers up and remorsefully returns home to Liza. Soon after the episode, Nell finds out she has bad syphilis for some time. She is upset at realizing that she has exposed John and indirectly, his wife and their coming baby to the disease. If Liza does not receive treatment within the first five months of her pregnancy, the baby could be born blind or crippled or dead. Nell must locate John to save him and his family from the nightmare of this dreaded venereal disease. The moving story of the Lloyd family is enacted with considerable strength by amateurs from the Gainesville, Georgia area where the film was shot on farm and small-town locations under the auspices of the Southern Educational Film Production Service at the University of Georgia at Athens. One of the film’s high points although probably added by someone other than the original producers, is the breach-birth delivery of the baby. It is an actual delivery, explicit in every way and shot in real time and at close range. 50 minutes. Education Exploitation Drama