Cinema: Also Showing

A Child Is Born (Warner Bros.) records with varying degrees of self-conscious pathos and humor the birth of seven infants. In this somewhat redundant remake of the tear-jerking stage play, Life Begins, first screened in 1932, grave, talented, strikingly lovely Geraldine Fitzgerald plays the mother who dies (from a Caesarean operation) that her baby may live. Other maternity-ward performers: Spring Byington, Gloria Holden, Gladys George, and 20 babies (average age 14 days), who, by working a total of 73 seconds, earning $75, became Hollywood's highest-paid actors. From their pay checks the far-sighted U. S. Government deducted percentages for unemployment insurance,...

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