MovieChat Forums > Our Time (1974) Discussion > This is it!!! SPOILER...Kinda in here, b...

This is it!!! SPOILER...Kinda in here, but I have to say it for myself

posted 17 years ago by twilightfun
11 replies | jump to latest

All these years and I've finally found you! Excuse me, people, but I've wondered about the events in this movie since I was a kid (telling myself, I did always, that there was some film where a girl -- not so bad looking as some'd try to make her seem) dies...from an abortion. And all I could remember is how sad I was when I saw it. And to this day I've rememebered, after praying for some way to find out what the movie's called before I die. Well, now I have (read up on Karen Balkin, who's in this and was in The Children's Hour) and I'm satisfied with that in life. Amen.

[–] roses888 17 years ago

I think the movie's intention at the time was to scare teenagers - that if they had premarital sex they could end up dying if they got pregnant and wanted an illegal abortion.

[–] Itsamoomoo 16 years ago

I am happy for you that you found it. This has been a favorite film of mine since I first saw it on network television in 1977 or 1978, only it was titled "The Death of Her Innocence," retitled for television.

It is great when you can found out information on a movie you remember long ago but wasn't sure about. I have a few of those myself but over the years I have luckily got to see them again.

As for the other post here about saying this movie was probably made to scare teenagers, I would have to disagree strongly. This is a 1974 film. I was a teenager in '74 and by then morals had pretty much gone out the window with filmmakers, and so that type of thinking was gone. The 1930s film "Reefers" was most definitely made to scare young people off of "the dangers of drugs" but as for "Our Time," no. Most people don't even know this film. It is a great film and Leonard Martin's review of it is way off. In his review he claims the "lighting" in this film "mars" the film but I think it only enhances it.

I hope to see other posts here about this film.

[–] wdw4us 16 years ago

This was an excellent film - I rarely base what I watch on reviewer's comments.

I still remember the first time I saw this movie, it was on HBO (or whatever they called it back then). I was 15 at the time. I was so moved by the story and the acting - I had never seen anything like that before. I don't think it was made to scare kids away from premarital sex, I think it was just trying to portray the way things were in the recent past.

I have a copy of this film that I taped from TV over 20 years ago. I really wish this movie would get a DVD release!

[–] villagevicarage 13 years ago

Good morning! Greetings from the United Kingdom!

I'm a bit frustrated as I thought I was being 'tagged' whenever someone responded to this film. Clearly I'm a technical idiot as I was clearly wrong.

You may possibly be able to solve something that has nagged at me for many years now.

I finally located, thanks to another IMDb member, a copy of Our Time. I was amazed that I remembered it so well - a testament to the retentive powers of a young mind! In any event, one of the most vivid memories I had of the film, in addition to both the milkshake scene and PSM coming off of the train in Boston's North Station to the sound of Michele LeGrande's stunning score, was the scene at the end of the film.

It's just before graduation and the camera is panning the empty dorm room and the voice over reads a modified version of Ecclesiastes 3: There is a time for everything, and a season for everything under the heavens: a time to be born and a time to die... and then Pamela enters the room.

But in the copy I received I was absolutely shocked to see that this element was not there! Yes, the visual remained, but in my copy only the music played as it panned the room and without the Ecclesiastes it somehow seems almost excruciatingly too long.

Could I possibly cajole, encourage, bribe, solicit, beg, or otherwise request that you get out your trusty VHS player and fast forward that crusty old piece of tape and see what show up on your copy?

I believe, rather strongly, that the Catholic Church got their toes in the water on this one in the New England area, where in the seventies, they had a good deal of power over many things, and forced the producer to include this before it could be released with the rating it received. I could be wrong, but I don't think I am. Over all the years I've been a clergyman I've heard some real dillies about the power they exerted in the New England area over a number of secular matters...a bit like the behaviour my own mother church has done here. (I'm an Anglican priest).

If you could do this I'm sure you'd be richly rewarded in Heaven for it, but probably not by anyone else, other than myself.

Thank you!

Fr. Bill+

[–] StoneGriffin 16 years ago

I remember seeing this when it first came out. I also had forgotten about it, but something nagged me for a long time. I remembered vaguely a movie where a young teen girl had sex for the first time, got pregnant, but being in a different era she seeks out an illegal back alley abortion, the abortion is botched and she develops internal hemorrhaging (a fate which chills my blood and I'm a guy), and dies. Her friend, played by a young Pamela Sue Martin screams when the doctor tries to tell her that her friend was dead. The boy who impregnated the girl (On his and her FIRST TIME) is standing there. Pamela Sue Martin's character throws her drink (either a soda or a milkshake) at the boy. He doesn't react, but just stands there, ashamed and adjusting his glasses. After a moment, she hugs him and begins to cry.

I actually looked for this movie on IMDB because for some reason I began thinking about that scene again.

I remembered that scene because it was heartbreaking at the time. Some laughed at this movie as being the 'Reefer Madness' propaganda film for the 'teen premarital sex' crowd. I actually thought of it as a credible argument in support of the then recent "Roe Vs Wade" decision. As a man, the last thing I ever wanted to see again, is young girls dying in illegal back alley botched abortions. I've seen books on the crime scene photos of dead girls throughout the 1940s and 1950s, left dead and abandoned in motel rooms by illegal abortionists. I never want to see that happen again. Regardless of one's view on the right to life, I know that I want at least professionals in proper medical facilities doing the procedure.

My post is not a rant either for or against abortion. But the issues presented in the film made me think and the death of the girl in the story really shocked and saddened me. :(

Dr. Kila Marr was right. Kill the Crystalline Entity.

[–] villagevicarage 16 years ago

I’ve been trying to find a copy of this film for a long time to show to teenagers at our small school in the Republic of Moldova. I’m an Anglican Priest. I have two homes in Eastern Europe. One is for victims of trafficking where we currently have 28 children. The second home is for abandoned street children.

I saw this film in the mid-seventies, but the story line has remained with me throughout my life. I’ve never considered Our Time to be an attempt to promote any moral line, but more so as a sadly realistic portrayal of the challenges faced by youth – whatever the year; peer pressure, natural exploration, longing to be loved, as well as longing to love.

I’ve done the rounds searching through the likes of ebay for the past 8 months, but should anyone ever see a copy of this being offered, I’d be most grateful if you cold let me know! Thank you! Fr.B

www.ProjectNewLife.org

[–] MedioSiglo 16 years ago

I love this movie too. I've always remembered the milkshake scene where she says the best present is something you like yourself, or something like that.

Why ain't you at the garden party you heathen?

[–] ofumalow 15 years ago

Funny how throwing that milkshake in the boy's face stayed in everyone's head (mine too). The movie only seems to have been released on vhs almost fifteen years ago, and copies are hard/expensive to find.

I don't think the movie was anti-sex propaganda. The young couple who know enough to use protection turn out fine; the two who are utterly clueless incur disastrous consequences. Maybe this was all rather melodramatically exaggerated but it definitely brought a lump to the throat. The worst thing about the movie was that it was shot in horribly gauzy soft-focus, presumably in an attempt to look like "the past" as glimpsed through nostalgically dim memory.

[–] straw_hat_boy_luffy 10 years ago

Legalizing something doesn't make it suddenly become safe. Girls still die from botched abortions. Probably moreso now because they are more common. All we've done is move the procedure out of the back alley. So instead of dying from back alley abortions, they'll die from them in your neighborhood clinic. (And besides, with more and more doctors refusing to do abortion and even the slightest effort to regular clinics viewed as being anti-woman, it's probably going to get even worse.) The only difference is now you won't see any crime scene photos because these deaths occur under the protection of US law.

__
Writing is my favorite hobby. Writing something that many can enjoy is my favorite dream.

[–] rocklyn80 (659) 4 years ago

sorry to jump n so late, like 12 yrs, but I was young and so this on HBO back then.
I so rem the botched abortion by a med term student, the bloody discovery and the milk shake scene, it so stuck with me
At least now I know the film it was from

[–] Sabrina (52) 4 years ago

I was shocked they had to rely on illegal abortion. I thought US was "liberal" world. I know some communist countries have made abortion illegal, but US? Common?