Black Market Baby (TV Movie 1977) Poster

(1977 TV Movie)

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6/10
A top TV soap opera requires top TV stars.
mark.waltz6 July 2023
Warning: Spoilers
There have been exploitation movies on this topic going back as far as films had pictures. A good girl gets in trouble, finds herself alone in the world and is threatened with the loss of the thing she holds most dear, her unborn child. Linda Purl is picked out by illegal baby broker Bill Bixby to be the surrogate mother for perspective adoptive parents David Doyle and Jessica Walter, wealthy but childless, and desperate for a child. She finds out the shocking truth about father Desi Arnaz Jr., and is soon living with Walter and Doyle whom her doctor Tom Bosley set her up to meet. Just what kind of doctor is he anyway?

The sweet Purl is completely unaware of her host's plans for her, and now determined to keep the child finds herself in a bit of danger. For their part, Walter and Doyle seem like perfectly nice people, but looks can be deceiving. And knowing Walter for her scheming, caustic matrons, her cheery presence might just be an act, and the script keeps the audience guessing. There's a young Annie Potts as another young mother to be, Lucille Benson as a friendly landlady and Beaulah Quo as a domestic. There's also Purl's family who are aghast by her situation. Watchable but a bit melodramatic and silly, but who can resist that cast?
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6/10
Black Market Baby!!!
BandSAboutMovies27 May 2024
Warning: Spoilers
Brut Productions was a film production company that - if the name doesn't clue you in - was part of Fabergé cosmetics. Run by George Barrie - who in addition to creating the Brut fragrance also was nominated for the 1973 Academy Award for Best Original Song with Sammy Cahn for "All That Love Went To Waste" and in 1975 for "Now That We're In Love" - it had Cary Grant on the board of directors and Roger Moore was an ambassador at large.

Their films include Cry for Me, Billy; Night Watch; A Touch of Class; Book of Numbers; Welcome to Arrow Beach; Miracles Still Happen; Hangup; Mean Johnny Barrows; Whiffs; Sweet Hostage; Hedda, Hugo the Hippo; I Will, I Will... for Now; Nasty Habits; Thieves; Fingers; The Class of Miss MacMichael and The Dream Merchants along with this film. Fabergé sold their interest in 17 films in 1982 for an undisclosed amount to Ted Turner.

Directed by Robert Day (She, The Man With Bogart's Face, The Initiation of Sarah) and written by Andrew Peter Marin from the book by Elizabeth Christman, this stars Linda Purl (Visiting Hours) as Anne Macarino, a young woman who falls for Steve Aletti (Desi Arnaz Jr.) and doesn't realize that he's part of a scheme by medical student Herbert Freemont (Bill Bixby) to get an Italian Catholic baby that has some intelligence to replace the child that was lost by Jessica Walter as Joseph and Louise Carmino (David Doyle and Jessica Walter). Everyone is in on this, even the kindly obstetrician Dr. Andrew Brantford (Tom Bosley) who is seemingly helping her. Now, knocked up, she can't tell her good Catholic family that she's with child (Allen Joseph, Mr. X from Eraserhead is her father), Steve is ignoring her and she's trapped in a home for expectant single mothers.

Even a really young Annie Potts shows up, so it has that going for it. It's her first movie. She plays one of the other mothers who reveals that she's selling her child and that's when Anne loses it. Then she stays with the Carminos without knowing that they want her child.

This movie is essential if you think that David Doyle and Tom Bosley are the same person.

Back to that house for mothers. It's owned by Mrs. Krieg, who is played by Lucille Benson, who will forever be Mrs. Elrod from Halloween II.
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