The Baby


1973 thriller

Rating; 12/20

Plot: A social worker becomes obsessed with a family consisting of a overbearing mother, two daughters, and a 20-something-year-old infant son.

A fascinating and fetishistic premise is wasted on a story that doesn't really go enough places and production values that would fit right in with made-for-television movies of the same decade. David Mooney plays the titular toddler but wisely used the name David Mamzy instead so that he wouldn't be typecast as characters who wear diapers and only have lines with "coo" or "coo coo" in them. Apparently, he shaved his entire body for the performance. Ruth Roman plays the mom, and if she would have amped up the performance a little bit, I think this could have been a lot more special. I kept wishing it was another Ruth--Ruth Gordon--in that role. I'm a little surprised that it wasn't Shelley Winters.

This has a twist ending that I didn't seem coming, probably because it doesn't make a lot of sense.

The best scene, of course, involved breastfeeding.

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