I love discovering old movies I can recommend to readers of The Epoch Times. With the powerful leading couple of Ray Milland and Gene Tierney, plus an interesting premise, I was expecting it to be good. However, I wasn’t expecting it to be so timely.
Milland and Tierney star as Brad and Midge Sheridan, a happily married couple who sense that something is missing in their lives. When a doctor confirms that Midge is barren, she feels like a failure as a woman. She perceives Brad’s impulsive purchase of a puppy as confirmation that he, too, feels a void in their home. They discuss adopting a baby, and Brad, although hesitant, supports her contacting a local agency.
Midge is dismayed to learn from foundling home director Mrs. Morrow (Fay Bainter) that there is a two-year waiting list for prospective parents. The determined housewife lets all her friends and acquaintances know that they are looking for a baby who needs a home.
A Mother’s Love
Although Academy Award-winner Ray Milland receives top billing, Gene Tierney is the true star of this film. Any woman can relate to the feelings of inadequacy with which she struggles. Her husband is always kind and supportive, saying he’s perfectly happy with their childless, unburdened lifestyle.However, no reassurance on his part can fill the void she feels in her own life. She has a mother’s heart, and she longs to shower all her love on a child. Of course, she wishes she could bear her own babies, but she doesn’t focus on her physical difficulties. Instead, she devotes all her energy to finding a child who needs the home and the love she and her husband can offer.
The experience left the actress traumatized and triggered the beginning of her battles with depression. Gene threw that pain and maternal grief into her performance as Midge Sheridan, a brave, compassionate woman who experiences disappointment, hope, and devastation during her journey to motherhood.
Adoption
When Midge learns about an abandoned baby boy, she falls in love with him without even seeing him. However, the path to Danny’s adoption is long and complicated. Meanwhile, Brad is nervous about adopting a baby whose origin is so uncertain.When Danny finally becomes theirs, on probation, Brad begins to share his wife’s affection for the foundling. However, his old fears are rekindled by a news story about an adopted boy with parents who turned to crime, despite a good upbringing. Brad determines to discover the truth about Danny’s parents, although his suspicion breaks Midge’s heart.
Thus, the film raises the old question of nature versus nurture, as many characters in the story wonder what effect a child’s heredity has on his character.
While Brad and other prospective parents for Danny fear that he could have inherited criminal tendencies from wrongdoing parents, Midge is confident that an adopted baby raised in a loving, moral environment has just as good a chance to become an upstanding citizen as any other child.
Midge believes Danny is not responsible for his parents’ behavior, good or bad. She loves him unconditionally, and she believes he has just as much right to life, love, a family, a home, and happiness as every other child.
I watched this movie on June 26, just two days after the historic Supreme Court decision of Dobbs v. Jackson overturned Roe v. Wade’s 49-year reign of abortion access.
Despite the legal difficulties and flaws of the system, adoption is still a wonderful option for families who want to care for children besides their own biological offspring. “Close to My Heart” shows how fulfilling adoption can be for infertile couples.
If you want a movie which is touching, meaningful, entertaining, thought-provoking, and still thoroughly relevant over 70 years after its release, look no further than “Close to My Heart.”
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