Love W A P Stranger/Alfie

[stuart.uk]

i still haven't seen all of Love With A Proper Stranger, but caught a fair chunk of it on You Tube. it was really good. particulary the dinner at her house routine, where nerves kinda got the better of both of them, ending with Nat throwing Steve out.

LWAPS was made two yrs before Alfie and both have gripping scenes regarding abortions. while i prefered what happened with Steve throwing out the abortionist and her pal, i wonder what kind of impact in might have made in America if Nat's character had terminated her pregnacy

in Alfie it showed Michael Caine's mistress, or one of them to be more accurate actually going through with the abortion, screaming her head of in agony. i wonder to if the film had any influence in the change of law that occurred 2-yrs later when young polititian David Steel (future leader of the Liberal Party) put through a bill making abortion in the UK legal.

if anything i think abortion in America, particulary in the 60s was and is still a bigger issue as it is in the UK. so i could be wrong, but if Nat in the film had the abortion the film might well have been savaged by polititians, the media and the public, who were anti abortian.

[jdb1]

Stuart, abortion always was and still is a "big issue" in the US. Before abortion was generally legalized here, one simply did not discuss it in public. Once it became legal, its opponents made sure it was discussed constantly.

You must bear in mind, when watching older movies, that for a woman to have an abortion then was not just a moral issue, but a medical one as well. Although many reputable medical doctors and nurses did perform clandestine abortions, most women were forced to go to dark alleys in the "bad" parts of town to find the offices of disgraced (and traditionally, alcoholic or drug-addicted) medical personnel, in many cases with bogus credentials, who were willing to do the job. In some cases it was merely some neighborhood woman; maybe she was also a midwife. A woman's chances of surviving an abortion were in most cases much less than her chances of surviving childbirth. It was a matter of life and death in more ways that one.

Audiences of the day would have understood that a woman wasn't just making a decision based on her moral thinking -- she was taking her own life in her hands if she decided to have an abortion. It was dangerous, and many women died, or were permanently damaged, as a result. Alfie's mistress was "screaming her head off" not just in pain, but certainly in fear that she might also die.

[stuart.uk]

i made a mistake here, check next post for message

[stuart.uk]

i've actually written a short story where an actress is forced into an illegal and painful abortion against her will. this resulted in her death a few hours later.

Vera Drake is a good film on the subject. in the UK there was great shame on a family if one of the girls got pregnant. a possibilty was a shotgun wedding, but often abortion was seen as the solution. i don't know if it was the case in The U.S, but it was known in the UK for a family to put a girl in a mental institution sometimes for the rest of her life all because she got pregnant. i wondering if a good idea of another story would be to have a mature women in her 30s in the 50s becoming prenant and having the indepedance and finacial clout to stand up to her familyhave her baby, but still having to put up with stigma of being a single-mum

Charlie Chaplin daringly made Edna Purviance a single mum in The Kid in 1921. if you've seen it you'd have seen the dump of a hospital she had the baby in (some commentators even think it was a mental institution). then she abanded the baby, thinking she left it with rich folks, not realising that the child ended up in a slum living with The Tramp

one interesting thing The Non-Religious Charlie did after Edna left the hospital was to show a picture of Jesus carrying his cross, as if to say what about forgiveness

[Dan]

Stuart, abortion always was and still is a "big issue" in the US. Before abortion was generally legalized here, one simply did not discuss it in public. Once it became legal, its opponents made sure it was discussed constantly.

True, which makes the abortionist scene in LWAPS ahead of it's time. In 1964 good girls didn't get abortions and good Italian-Catholic girls never ever got abortions. In a romantic comedy like that film she wouldn't have had the abortion though.

[charliechaplinfan]

Abortion isn't as much of a hot potato here as it is in America. Only recently our government turned down a proposal to reduce the limit, at the moment it stands at 24 weeks and it remained at 24 weeks after the Primeminister turned it into a party political issue and all his party were made to vote for the law to remain at 24 weeks. A baby born from 20 weeks onwards is born breathing and is left to die. I think it is shameful that our government didn't do the right thing.

I'm sorry everyone, I'm not against the choice, just the limit.

[jdb1]

Stuart, abortion always was and still is a "big issue" in the US. Before abortion was generally legalized here, one simply did not discuss it in public. Once it became legal, its opponents made sure it was discussed constantly.

True, which makes the abortionist scene in LWAPS ahead of it's time. In 1964 good girls didn't get abortions and good Italian-Catholic girls never ever got abortions. In a romantic comedy like that film she wouldn't have had the abortion though.

I don't think your comment about good Italian-Catholic girls is quite true, Dan. I knew of plenty of young Italian-American women, and some not so young women, who got illicit abortions long before the procedure became legal. There were some older women in my neighborhood who would perform them, risky as that was. When a woman already had 4 or 5 children, was overworked, had little money and was in shaky health, the idea of an abortion was not quite as heinous to her as it might have been when she was younger. I also recall that several "good Catholic" women my mother knew went to Cuba and Puerto Rico to get abortions in the 1950s and 60s.

[mrsl]

I think until my generation (50 - 70) is gone, abortion will remain a hot issue in all respects. We were the last to be raised in that tight family oriented, father knows best, atmosphere. Our daughters were raised as independent thinkers, and the boys were taught that the girls had brains, and were not chattel to be 'taken care of' or 'instructed' in what to do with their lives. Just as men were meeting their 'inner child' women were meeting their self-assured, power seekers.

I don't believe in abortion as a cure-all for everyone, but young teens who lose their inhibitions on prom night, especially youngsters who have never been particularly problematic, or rape, incest etc. Why should those girls be forced to go through the heartbreak of carrying a baby for 9 months, then give it away - no matter who the father is, that is a wrenching experience for a young girl who did nothing on her own to deserve it. As for incest, what if the father is a product of incest also, now you're going into three generations, that has been proven is not good.

I understand all the arguments about a soul being in the embryo, but I'm sorry sometimes the other people involved deserve a second chance more than that embryo deserves a first, especially if it's going to be doomed to life in an orphanage. What burns my butt are these people going to China and Russia to get babies when there are so many American babies needing homes.

But . . . that's another story

Anne

[charliechaplinfan]

I think thisis a contentious subject but I'll plough on anyway

When researching my family tree I spoke to both my Aunt and Great Aunt, my Great Aunt was my Grandfather's youngest sister and he was the oldest child. There was 19 years between them, there was 10 surviving children plus others lost along the way. My Great Grandfather like some of his generation used to like an odd tipple and then he'd like to go home to his wife, if you get my drift, both ladies who I spoke to said that his 'rule' was that three months after the babies had been born she was fair game again. She at least was pregnant 14 times and between babies and being a smallholder's wife she surprisingly managed to live to a reasonable age.

For all my love of old films and the romanticism of olden times I realise I look back through rose coloured glasses. I am so glad I am a chld of the '70's and I'm so glad that the amount of children I have is my choice to make.