The Story of Life (1948)

An educational film, made for high school students with the assistance of the California Department of Health and the University of California, among others. In the wake of the Kinsey report and social change hastened by postwar prosperity, themes of knowledge of the facts of life, open discussion of them, and appreciating modern medical science inform an emerging liberal world view. This film takes us into a hospital to observe the medical procedures of a normal birth and a Caesarean. The focus is on the technical aspects of delivering a child and the stages of labor, with constant reassurance that, in general, things will go well.