MovieChat Forums > The Divided Heart (1955) Discussion > Superb Movie yet Heartbreaking

Superb Movie yet Heartbreaking

posted 9 years ago by SkiesAreBlue
2 replies | jump to latest

Just finished watching this on Sydney"s GEM free to air channel. Wonderful film and great acting. I found some things hard to take and wonder if that's was the way things were done in those days or just a bit of extra drama for the screen. The scene where the couple are expected to choose from two boys. "You will be shown two boys. Choose!" Wow. The judges looking as though they intend to intimidate the child. Again, the "You Choose"! Double Wow! The under laying story here is also the fear from the birth mother who finds out that her son is being brought up and living with the very enemy who destroyed her family during the WW2.

This is based on a true story which I believe you can read on Wikipedia in a Time Life magazine, Oct 1952. The full story is in that article.

One another thing must be mistranslated is the "Birth Mother", fine but the description of the "Bread Mother"? I believe that the child had been adopted legally, therefore she had every right to be a "Mother". Gave love, shelter and food as though he would have been her "birth" child.

SkiesAreBlue

[–] SPfromOZ 9 years ago

Hi There, did you watch this on Gem (Channel 90), in Australia? I recorded it and only just watched it. Yes, of cause it's ideas are very dated by today's methods. We are talking about more than 60 years ago!. Having said that, I was surprised at the judgement. I thought that they would have had him remain with the German couple. I felt for both mothers (and the father), what a terrible situation to be in! I kept on yelling at the TV, 'let him stay in his (German) home and he can visit and spend holidays with his birth mother'. I would have thought this would have been an easier transition for Toni than just being yanked from his home and sent to stay in another country, where he doesn't even speak the language! He can't have got to know his birth mother in just 3 days, what a shocking adjustment for a child to have to make.

As to how he was adopted so easily, that's what a bloody senseless war does. There would have been many war orphans that needed a home, and I'm sure a lot remained in orphanages until adulthood. The 'you choose' scene might have come about if the couple had specific requests on the child they wanted to adopt. Such as wanting a 3 year old boy with dark hair (so he might resemble them in).

Anyway, it was an enjoyable movie to watch, from the 'B&W' genre. I'm sure if it was made today with perhaps say, a war in the middle east as the background, it would be a very different film.

They don't make them like they used to!

[–] SkiesAreBlue 9 years ago

Yes I did watch it on channel 90. Great station with wonderful old B&W movies. I totally agree with you regarding how they can shunt a child to another country without knowing the language. He should have stayed with his German parents and go for holidays to visit his birth mother but I suppose they wanted a dramamtic ending. Will try and read the Time Magazine article and see what the real outcome was.

SkiesAreBlue