Gainborough melodrama given a modern day kitchen sink realism - Pat Roc expands her range as a working class girl who gives birth and finds out her husband's a bigamist. She kicks hubby to the curb and tries to make a go of it but struggles - an all too believable scenario, very empathetic. Eventually she gives up and passes the kid over to rich Rosamund Johns, who lost a kid and is fairly salivating to get her hands on Roc's. Her husband seems indifferent either way. Years later Roc gets her act together, marries kindly Bill Owen and tries to get her kid back.
There's no costumes, period setting or outrageous plot developments. There's not even handsome men - Owen is very bloke next door. Mind you that's the take the film was going for - and actually it could have worked. (And it did for audiences who turned this into a minor hit).
But the film fumbles the drama - it's way too polite and hesitant. We don't meet the father, who would seem to me.
It was a bit rough of Roc to just rock up to Johns and go "I want my kid back". But I didn't like Johns' character with all her cash, being desperate to get her hands on the kid, not telling the kid he's adopted and refusing to give the kid back. It has the potential for good drama. Potential which is missed.
The film misses dramatic moments wholesale - Johns and Roc never fight dirty, Owen mostly hangs around going "you're mothering him wrong" to Roc, Johns' husband just sort of goes "you've got to give the kid back" to Johns (he seems indifferent to the kid - he was the father for eight years - you'd think would have more of an attitude.)
We don't see the scene where the kid is told he is adopted and his real mother is someone else. The kid rocks up and asks who the maid is and where the garden is and is going to be a bit of a snob, and you think the film's going to use it in an interesting way... but they don't. The kid just an annoying little snob who runs away to his old home - but not a dramatically interesting snob. He's so unsympathetic you don't care what happens to him.
The film raises all sorts of class issues that probably could have been mined more. Johns and her husband have money, Roc and Owen don't. The kid's a rich kid who is bullied (off screen) by the poor kids. Both Owen and Johns' husband seem really keen to get rid of the kid.
And the ending is a damp squib - Roc drops the kid off with Johns. We don't see a final scene between Roc and Johns. The kid promises to write. Cut to the kid having a birthday with his rich parents and rich friends, then cut to Roc and Owen having a birthday with their new kid, a little baby. No sadness, no poignancy, no drama. Warring mothers of children offers great potential - look at Stella Dallas, The Old Maid etc. This drops the ball.
Roc struggles at times with her working class accent and is very non glamorous but is pretty and likeable. Johns is okay in an unsympathetic part. Owen is engaging.
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