Where Are My Children?

Infobox Film
name = Where Are My Children?


caption =
director = Phillips Smalley (uncredited) Lois Weber (uncredited)
producer = Phillips Smalley Lois Weber
writer = Lucy Payton (story) Franklin Hall (story) Lois Weber Phillips Smalley
starring = Tyrone Power, Sr. A.D. Blake Marjorie Blynn Juan de la Cruz
music =
cinematography = Stephen S. Norton (uncredited) Allen G. Siegler (uncredited)
editing =
distributor = Universal Film Manufacturing Company
released = April 16, 1916
runtime = 62 min.
language = Silent film
English intertitles
country = USA
budget =
amg_id = 1:116600
imdb_id = 0007558

"Where Are My Children?" is a 1916 film in which a district attorney, while prosecuting a doctor for illegal abortions, finds out that society people, including his wife, used the doctor's services. It stars Tyrone Power, Sr., Juan de la Cruz, Helen Riaume, William Haben and C. Norman Hammond.

An unrelated television film also titled "Where Are My Children?" was released in 1994, starring Marg Helgenberger.

Plot

John Walton, a district attorney, is presented with an obscenity case: A medical practitioner has been arrested for distributing 'indecent' birth control literature. On the stand, he makes a case for his thesis that breeding and financial planning are integral to raising healthy and happy families, and that sex education and contraception information should be available to prospective parents.

Meanwhile, Walton's wife has been keeping a secret from him for many years: She has been seeing a doctor who performs abortions so that her busy social life will not be interrupted by the inconvenience of pregnancy. She suggests it as an option for her friend Mrs. William Carlo, who is with child. Mrs Carlo has the abortion.

The Waltons receive two new guests in their house almost simultaneously: Mrs. Walton's ne'er-do-well younger brother, and the maid's young daughter. Smitten by the brother's advances, the maid's daughter is seduced and soon finds herself in trouble. She is taken to the same abortion doctor and then abandoned by the boy after the operation goes wrong. Making her way back to the Walton mansion, she collapses and dies from a botched abortion.

Following the abortion doctor's arrest and trial, Walton examines his ledgers and realized that his wife and many of her friends are listed as having received 'personal services.' He returns home, furious, to find them lunching at his home. He banishes his wife's friends, saying he 'should bring you to trial for manslaughter!' and confronts his wife, who is overcome with remorse. As the years pass, the couple must contend with a lonely, childless life, full of longing for the family they might have had.

Themes

The film was inspired by the obscenity case of Margaret Sanger in New York. Co-writer/director Lois Weber was an ardent admirer of Sanger's efforts, and this film stands as one of the best surviving examples of Weber's social problem films.

Eugenics and family planning are discussed didactically in the film, and examples of desirable or undesirable children (the results of good or bad breeding respectively) are show.

While the film presents an argument for birth control, it takes a firm stance against abortion portraying the wealthy women as partaking in abortions on a whim. According to some critics, the film also portrays abortion inaccurately, suggesting that it is inherently harmful to patients both physically and mentally (though such critics undercut their own arguments that illegal [underground] abortions are inherently physically and mentally dangerous). It is left somewhat obscure at film's end as to whether Mrs. Walton can no longer have children because her body is damaged by a long-term overindulgence in abortions, or simply because she has passed the age of childbearing.

Production

The movie was written by Lucy Payton, Franklin Hall, Lois Weber and Phillips Smalley. No director is credited. Future star Mary MacLaren made her debut in this film playing the Walton's younger maid. Shooting took place in the Los Angeles area, and at the Universal studio facilities in Hollywood. The Waltons are played by Tyrone Power, Sr. and Helen Riaume who at the time were real life husband and wife. Anne Power, their daughter, has a small role.

The film makes use of several trick photography scenes, with an emphasis on multiple exposures to convay information or emotions visually. This is so particularly in the final scene of the film. As a recurring motif, every time a character becomes pregnant, a child's face is double exposed over their shoulder.

Where Are My Children also had an unofficial sequel, a film called "Hand that Rocks the Cradle", also made by Weber and Smalley, in which Weber plays a principal role.

Preservation

The film has been deemed "culturally significant" by the United States Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry. A 2000 DVD release featured a reconstructed piano score written and performed by Martin Marks. A 2007 DVD release featured full orchestration of the Marks score, as arranged by Allen Feinstein.

The film has been called "the pro-life answer to The Cider House Rules."