NFR Project: 'All My Babies: A Midwife's Own Story' (1953)

NFR Project: “All My Babies: A Midwife’s Own Story”

Dir: George C. Stoney

Scr: George C. Stoney

Premiere: 1953

An extraordinary film. Read Joshua Glick’s excellent article on it here. He gives us a keen biography of writer/director George C. Stoney as well as a thorough analysis of the film.

Educational films were a category unto themselves. Shorn of the production values of commercial films, they were practical in nature, seeking to delineate procedures legibly and to transmit information effectively. This Stoney does; but he also shows us a time and place unimaginable now, a place of primitive conditions and wound up in the profound distrust of white officials.

What’s so special about this film is the empowerment it gives to its subjects. George Stoney worked with his central figure, veteran midwife Mary Francis Hill Coley, on the creation of the movie. She collaborated on the sequences to be filmed, if not the method with which they are recorded. In a time when Black people were treated on film at best condescendingly, this deep respect for the people it profiles makes All My Babies a landmark of compassionate cinema.

The story follows Coley as she goes about doing the duties of midwifery. (At the time of filming, Coley had performed more than 1,400 deliveries.) The emphasis on coming under a doctor’s care when pregnant is strong but friendly. White people are not to be feared – at least the ones who want to be helpful. Coley is profiled as she goes about her business; she even narrates the film. The film covers two pregnancies, a textbook case in one instance and a difficult and emotionally fraught delivery as well.

The film is not shy about showing us the process of birth. Let the squeamish be warned. In spite of its graphic nature, there is something wholesome about it. This basic human mechanism, long bound up in myth and conjecture, is revealed as a natural process that requires the assistance of an experienced obstetric figure.

In this case, the traditional midwife is addressed directly by the film. Sanitation is emphasized. Preparation and procedure are outlined, and we get a bit of a profile of the prospective couples as well. (Some of these parts are performances.) There is the accompaniment of a gospel choir as well, singing passages written by Louis Applebaum. The result is an effective examination of the process and conditions of medical treatment in the rural South at the dawn of the Civil Rights era.

The NFR is one writer’s attempt to review all the films listed in the National Film Registry in chronological order. Next time: The Band Wagon.