Catholic Church


When I watched this movie again recently the host on Turner movies claimed that the movie was originally supposed to be set in the US but Catholic bishops thought the concept was too much like the Immaculate Conception/Virgin Birth and objected so production was moved to England. I think this is very unlikely for several reasons. The Immaculate Conception refers to the Birth of Mary and not Jesus. If he had meant the Virgin Birth of Jesus it is still unlkiely because none of the mothers claimed to be virgins although one mother was a young teenager and assumed to have not been sexually active and the movie does not explore how the women were physically inseminated. Also the Virgin Mary's pregnancy was obviously voluntary. So there is no comparison between VotD and the Immaculate Conception/Virgin Birth for the bishops to object to. In additon, how would the bishops know the plot of a yet to be made movie that wasn't that big of a hit? Possible, but unlikely. And if they did object why would setting the movie in England versus America mollify them? Finally, the bishop's keep their movie reviews on their site and gave VotD a positive review and I can find no evidence online that they ever made these supposed objections. No I do not want to argue about Catholicism/the Catholic Bishops in this country/censorship etc. But the host was, from what I can tell wrong and if something is incorrect than that should be corrected.

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According to the commentary on the second audio track of the dvd, Sterling Silliphant wrote the original screenplay in 1957 or 58, but the studio was afraid of the "virgin birth" motif as implied in the script, thinking it might offend Catholics and the Catholic Church. The movie was dropped from production.

The script was re-written several times after that and was purchased by another producer. The "virgin birth" dialog was altered and the film was finally relesed in 1960.

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Belated thanks, much appreciated.

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Tom

Wolf Rilla was also quoted in a 1959 UK trade paper as saying they had to do something (unspecified) with the dialogue over the concept of virgin birth. he implied that it was no big deal though.

Does the US double-bill of this film have an audio commentary? The UK one doesn't.

Thanks

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