TEST TUBE BABIES is a sleazy and horrid little film that is actually much worse than Ed Wood's "masterpiece", PLAN 9! In every conceivable way (like the pun?),it's worse--the acting, the writing, the directing, the sets and the stripping (yes, I did say "stripping").

This film purports to be an educational film that is for adults who want to learn about the new miracle of artificial insemination (not, actually, "test tube babies" as the title would seem to indicate). However, apart from a very boring and poorly written last 1/3 of the movie (punctuated with a gratuitous nude scene),there is nothing educational about this mess. In fact, it's a soft-core porn movie by today's standards and an X-rated film for 1948! There is nothing educational about showing the young bride parading around the house in a see-through nightgown, a "wild" party where one of the females strips for her friends (where she and the female "friends" look like they really were either strippers or prostitutes),and when the young wife takes off her clothes in the doctor's office and you get a quick glimpse of her totally naked body! For 1948, this is VERY hot stuff, though audiences today might find it all pretty tame and it would have received an R rating.

But what hasn't changed over the years is the pathetic nature of the film from a technical standpoint--in 1948 as in now, it's a terrible film. The acting is very amateurish most of the time--with a blonde at the party and the young wife often speaking as if they're dyslexic and reading from cue cards, the husband mispronouncing the word "gynacologist", a doctor with the charisma of a tomato and the use of strippers/prostitutes for the female roles. And, when mistakes were made, they simply stayed in the film because the filmmakers seemed unwilling to edit anything! If PLAN 9 deserved to receive a score of 1 from so many viewers, shouldn't it be possible to give TEST TUBE BABIES some score even lower?!

My wife watched this film with me and is now angry that she lost an hour of her life that she can never get back. I guess I owe her some flowers or a back rub!

Oh my, where to start! Perhaps at the beginning with the film's inclusion of a credit to the National Research Foundation for Fertility Incorporated of Nesconset, Long Island. I had to scratch my head over mention that the new field of artificial insemination was 'free from the taint of heredity' - didn't quite know how to interpret that, although a scene in the doctor's office clearly contradicted that notion later on.

What's mind boggling, and hilariously so, is all the goofy stuff that goes on before getting to the serious subject matter. A late Forties suburban couple decides to get married and eventually raise a family, but seemingly find it necessary to endure wild parties, gigolo come-ons from a co-worker, and a strip tease followed by one of the wildest cat fights you're ever likely to see. All from the comfort of their very own home I might add. I'm not sure how the Research Foundation people found any of this to be supportive of their cause, but who am I to question that.

What I haven't seen anyone on this board mention though, is Dr. Wright's (convenient isn't it, that he was called Dr.(W)Right) office decorum, giving advice as he lights up a cigarette to speak to husband George. In fact, the good doctor even sends George out for more smokes on the night of his wife's first delivery! The other thing that seemed weird to me was why the Doc made his examination of Cathy Bennett with his shirt and glasses removed, wearing a set of white scrubs. This happened not once, but twice! All the while wondering if Nurse Mason might just try to get in on a little action herself. I dare say, I'm somewhat disappointed she didn't.

You know, I've had this film sitting around for over a year in a compilation of 'Cult Classics' from Mill Creek Entertainment, and it's amazing how my timing is almost always a matter of cosmic serendipity. Had I opted to see this picture earlier, I would never have made the connection with George's uncanny resemblance to that hideous and even creepier former Presidential candidate John Edwards.

This very entertaining melodrama is one of those old exploitation flicks that pretended that it was a message movie to get itself passed the censor. Any film that addressed issues of sex in the 1940's was deemed very racy. This movie is basically an excuse to show scenes of very brief nudity, women cat-fighting and a drunken swinger's party; it tags on material that promotes the then new science of artificial insemination. What makes it so enjoyable is the combination of the appalling acting, the over-ripe melodrama and the completely unsubtle message combined with ludicrous wicked behaviour.

The film features the legendary non-actor Timothy Farrell as the chain-smoking doctor who at one point asks the husband of the woman in labour if he could pop out and buy him some cigarettes! At another time he is part of a quite uproariously funny misunderstanding between doctor and patient, when after informing the unlucky couple that they cannot have children because the husband is sterile, he tells them there is something he can do, to which hilariously, and completely without irony, the wife seems to think that he means he is willing to bang her! So very, very funny. The wife is played by an actress called Dorothy Duke, and unsurprisingly I have never seen her in any other production, as her acting is quite exceptionally atrocious. However, I enjoyed her earnest performance enormously. But in fairness, every actor and actress in this movie cannot act.

I have to admit that I lapped up this old exploitation flick very much indeed. The melodrama is so ridiculous and the swinger's party is very funny – wait for the cat-fight. And it's rounded off with the ludicrous scenes in the clinic. By all conventional standards I guess this is a bad film but by entertainment standards this is a very enjoyable one. I certainly recommend it. Oh and the title is utterly meaningless.