Enjoyed this film because of my interest in artificial insemination and this film portrayed a story that showed the good side of such a decision, but made the entire subject a bad thing, only because of a doctor who practiced sick ways of inseminating woman and I will not be able to go into great details, or I will reveal the facts of this story. Melissa Gilbert, (Mary Bennett) gave an outstanding performance as a woman who used the services of Dr. Cecil Jacobson, (George Dzundza), "Hack" TV Series and was able to conceive a nice baby boy. Shanna Reed,(Sue Castellano) gave a great supporting role and was able to tell Mary Bennett about the strange medical practices that Dr. Cecil Jacobson was doing to all his patients. There are always people who try to make money off of poor innocent people and who abuse their professional positions. Good Film for people interested in Artificial Insemination.
8 Reviews
Seed
safenoe9 January 2024
Warning: Spoilers
I was motivated to post an imdb user review for The Babymaker: The Dr. Cecil Jacobson Story after watching the Law and Order episode Seed, which debuted the same year as this movie of the week which I saw back in the 1990s. The reason is that Seed is also based on Dr Cecil Jacobson's shenanigans. It happened Cecil passed away in 2021.
Coincidentally, George Dzundza, who was in the original line-up of Law and Order (and later played a no-nonsense, cynical police detective in Basic Instinct), plays Dr Cecil Jacobson in The Babymaker: The Dr. Cecil Jacobson Story. The implications of this movie are disturbing.
Coincidentally, George Dzundza, who was in the original line-up of Law and Order (and later played a no-nonsense, cynical police detective in Basic Instinct), plays Dr Cecil Jacobson in The Babymaker: The Dr. Cecil Jacobson Story. The implications of this movie are disturbing.
DUH!
skarylarry-934006 June 2022
Very "Made For Television"!
richard_savino8 June 2000
Not a very good "thriller" or "drama" but there is a strong and twisted storyline present. Very typical of "made for television" movies of this nature. Semi-strong performance from Melissa Gilbert leaves you wanting more. Not highly recommended from this viewer. Blah!
What a fuss about nothing !
nicholas.rhodes25 February 2006
Warning: Spoilers
I was sorry to see my one of my much-loved favourite actresses, Melissa Gilbert, starring in trollop of this nature ! Apparently she is seeking to have a baby, goes to see a specialist on the advice of a friend, a specialist who promises artificial insemination. Well, the baby is born and our friend Gilbert is quite happy with her new son when suddenly there is some doubt raised about the identity of the sperm donor - indeed it may well be the Doctor Cecil Jacobson himself !! This all results in a lawsuit !! Sounds typically American to me this lawsuit business ! So what, who really cares one iota who the doner of the sperm is, the main thing is that Melissa Gilbert has her long desired child ! I cannot see where the harm done is and quite frankly consider this film to be pointless in whatever message it purports to deliver. I can only imagine that you have to have been born or brought up in the USA to sympathise with the protagonists !
In his Image
sol12181 June 2008
Warning: Spoilers
**SPOILERS** Based on a true story "Seeds of Deception" has to do with the criminal actions of geneticist Dr. Cecil Jacobson, George Dzundza. The overly jolly friendly and concerned Dr. Jacobson in order to give some dozen, will never know the exact number, young women the gift of life ended up impregnating them with his own sperm. Dr. Jacobson's reign of terror-of rape by long distance-came to an end when a number of the women whom he cured of infertility notice that their new born children had a striking resemblance to the man who treated them! Dr. Cecil Jacobson!
One of Dr. Jacobson's success stories Mary Bennett, Melissa Gilbert, who together with her husband Greg, Tom Verica, had no possibility of having a child were excited as hell when it was reported that Mary was in fact pregnant. Later when their child was born he, Jesse played by Michael Charles Roman, developed a minor eye diseases Strabismus, or lazy eye, that had him wear an eye-patch in order to correct it. It was around that time when Dr. Jacobson was being accused of unethical behavior by the Virginia Medical Association that Mary coming to the Doctor's defense noticed a number of children at the Hall of Justice with the same kind of eye-patches that Jesse has! This shocking revelation on Mary's part started her thinking if the good doctor was in fact worth defending.
Mary went from being a staunch defender of the good doctor Jacobson to soon became a pain in his butt. This had Mary testifying, in disguise, against Jacobson in open court on the crime he perpetrated on her her husband as well as her, an Jacobson's, son Jesse! This all lead to Jacobson's conviction on as many as 52 charges of mail and wire fraud that put him behind bars for some five years and had his license suspended from practicing medicine.
It's hard to understand just what Dr. Jacobson's motives were in the very strange and destructive, to his patients fragile mental state, actions he did in the film. Admittedly Dr. Jacobson's research and artificial insemination techniques were very successful in having an amazing 25% success rate on the women, including Mary Bennett, that he treated. Why Jacobson had to use his own sperm to impregnate his patients instead of that of unknown but screened for disease donors was never really explained in the film. Dr. Jacobson's lame explanation, when the evidence of his crimes were a forgone conclusion, of not having anyone available to donate sperm so he had to use, after paying a trip to the bathroom, his own just made his guilt, in trying to explain it away, more obvious to the jury as well as those of us in the audience.
Dr. Jacobson's crimes may well have been motivated by his overblown ego more then anything else. Jacobson prided himself as being known in medical circles as "The Baby Maker" and what turned out that, in his way of making babies, his treatment wasn't for the most part with the sperm denoted to his laboratory or clinic by unknown but healthy and mentally sound donors but with his own.
In trying to create what seemed to be a race of his own, and in his own image, like the crazed Dr. Eric Vornoff in the movie "Bride of the Monster" Dr. Jacobson not only betrayed the trust and confidence of his desperate patients but gave their offspring's the very same imperfections, mentally and well as psychically, that he had!
One of Dr. Jacobson's success stories Mary Bennett, Melissa Gilbert, who together with her husband Greg, Tom Verica, had no possibility of having a child were excited as hell when it was reported that Mary was in fact pregnant. Later when their child was born he, Jesse played by Michael Charles Roman, developed a minor eye diseases Strabismus, or lazy eye, that had him wear an eye-patch in order to correct it. It was around that time when Dr. Jacobson was being accused of unethical behavior by the Virginia Medical Association that Mary coming to the Doctor's defense noticed a number of children at the Hall of Justice with the same kind of eye-patches that Jesse has! This shocking revelation on Mary's part started her thinking if the good doctor was in fact worth defending.
Mary went from being a staunch defender of the good doctor Jacobson to soon became a pain in his butt. This had Mary testifying, in disguise, against Jacobson in open court on the crime he perpetrated on her her husband as well as her, an Jacobson's, son Jesse! This all lead to Jacobson's conviction on as many as 52 charges of mail and wire fraud that put him behind bars for some five years and had his license suspended from practicing medicine.
It's hard to understand just what Dr. Jacobson's motives were in the very strange and destructive, to his patients fragile mental state, actions he did in the film. Admittedly Dr. Jacobson's research and artificial insemination techniques were very successful in having an amazing 25% success rate on the women, including Mary Bennett, that he treated. Why Jacobson had to use his own sperm to impregnate his patients instead of that of unknown but screened for disease donors was never really explained in the film. Dr. Jacobson's lame explanation, when the evidence of his crimes were a forgone conclusion, of not having anyone available to donate sperm so he had to use, after paying a trip to the bathroom, his own just made his guilt, in trying to explain it away, more obvious to the jury as well as those of us in the audience.
Dr. Jacobson's crimes may well have been motivated by his overblown ego more then anything else. Jacobson prided himself as being known in medical circles as "The Baby Maker" and what turned out that, in his way of making babies, his treatment wasn't for the most part with the sperm denoted to his laboratory or clinic by unknown but healthy and mentally sound donors but with his own.
In trying to create what seemed to be a race of his own, and in his own image, like the crazed Dr. Eric Vornoff in the movie "Bride of the Monster" Dr. Jacobson not only betrayed the trust and confidence of his desperate patients but gave their offspring's the very same imperfections, mentally and well as psychically, that he had!
True Story Well Told
rachelstuartwhite11 December 2018
What other reviewers forget is that it's based on a true story. You don't need to understand the doctor's motivation. You don't need to understand why Melissa Gilbert is a victim even though she got her long desired baby. The law is the law, the guy committed a crime, and people were taken and out of money. Speaking of money, I loved how back then $20 will get you sperm. I digress. I thought it was well done that the friend distance herself from the main character after conceiving. Totally true of women in that circumstance and you think it's jealousy, but in actuality it's because people normally distance themselves from people who are duped by charletons but come together again once the duped come around. Showed a great view of two sides of a story with regards to two very different victims of this real live narcissist, yet still maintains that both are indeed victims.
seeds of Cecil
petershelleyau16 November 2002
Melissa Gilbert is Mary Bennett, a housewife in Oak Ridge Virginia who becomes pregnant from the artificial insemination program of Dr Cecil Jacobson (George Dzundza). However Mary testifies in a fraud suit against Jacobson, accused on 46 counts of using his own sperm to impregnate patients.
Gilbert's Mary rides a motorbike and her hair is short in the second half of the movie when the narrative jumps 5 years. She has a camp appearance in blonde wig as `Mrs Jones' in disguised testimony, has a touching moment crying in the arms of her friend Sue Castellano (Shanna Reed), and supplies a sly smile when Jacobson yells at her `I am not the father of that woman's child!'
The teleplay by Phil Penningroth and Sharon Elizabeth Doyle, based on a true story, begins with Sue's story of Jacobson using the hormone HCG to create a false pregnancy, another fraud count. When Mary consults Jacobson, this sets up the expectation that she too will be duped, so when she gives birth it's a surprise. It is that her son Jesse (Michael Charles Roman) suffers from a lazy eye condition that other children of Jacobson's patients also suffer from that makes Mary question the identity of his donors. Although it is used to allow Mary a chance to talk about her experience, a talk back radio program's initial parody of Jacobson's behaviour scores a laugh.
Director Arlene Stanford uses a bad music score by James McVay, black and white replays of previous scenes as flashbacks, and allows Reed to make as strong an impression as Gilbert.
Gilbert's Mary rides a motorbike and her hair is short in the second half of the movie when the narrative jumps 5 years. She has a camp appearance in blonde wig as `Mrs Jones' in disguised testimony, has a touching moment crying in the arms of her friend Sue Castellano (Shanna Reed), and supplies a sly smile when Jacobson yells at her `I am not the father of that woman's child!'
The teleplay by Phil Penningroth and Sharon Elizabeth Doyle, based on a true story, begins with Sue's story of Jacobson using the hormone HCG to create a false pregnancy, another fraud count. When Mary consults Jacobson, this sets up the expectation that she too will be duped, so when she gives birth it's a surprise. It is that her son Jesse (Michael Charles Roman) suffers from a lazy eye condition that other children of Jacobson's patients also suffer from that makes Mary question the identity of his donors. Although it is used to allow Mary a chance to talk about her experience, a talk back radio program's initial parody of Jacobson's behaviour scores a laugh.
Director Arlene Stanford uses a bad music score by James McVay, black and white replays of previous scenes as flashbacks, and allows Reed to make as strong an impression as Gilbert.
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