This early talkie is rather static and at times it feels like the actors are playing to a theater audience. "The Very Idea" is adapted from a play.
The story is simple: a couple wants to have a baby and they employ a surrogate mother (and father) to produce a baby for them.
This does not seem very different from the surrogacy that is now very popular in the U.S. But dialogue about improving the human race make this story feel more like it is about eugenics, the social movement that existed during the early 20th century.
I found the story rather insipid and the acting amateurish and stiff, but this film is somewhat interesting just as a representation of film quality in 1929 and because of its intimations of eugenics, which later became tainted due to Nazi associations.
The story is simple: a couple wants to have a baby and they employ a surrogate mother (and father) to produce a baby for them.
This does not seem very different from the surrogacy that is now very popular in the U.S. But dialogue about improving the human race make this story feel more like it is about eugenics, the social movement that existed during the early 20th century.
I found the story rather insipid and the acting amateurish and stiff, but this film is somewhat interesting just as a representation of film quality in 1929 and because of its intimations of eugenics, which later became tainted due to Nazi associations.