A very early example of what you descibed is included in a recently discovered 1925 film called MOTHERHOOD: LIFE'S GREATEST MIRACLE directed by Lita Lawrence, an otherwise unknown filmmaker. It was discovered in a Waco nursing home several years ago and restored by the Southwest Film/Video Archives, an organization recently, and very unwisely, done away with by Southern Methodist University. It was screened at last month's SCS Conference in Dallas. It was a (fictional narrative) film designed to influence the attitudes of American women about pregnancy and childbirth, specifically to encourage them to go to the hospital to have their babies. Obstetrics was becoming more and more professionalized and hospitals were looking to capitalize on a new form of service to women at a time when childbirth was still very risky business. Unfortunately, it was also a time when hospitals had not quite come to grips with effective aseptic and antiseptic techniques that could overcome the proximity of maternity wards to other areas of the hospital, and maternal deaths from childbirth actually peaked in the 20s, usually from infections brought on by operative interference in the childbirth process. The film includes some footage of real hospitals, and according to the archive's research, originally included a scene of actual childbirth. This reel was censored in the film's New York exhibition and has apparently been lost. To get to your point, however, the women in the film being wheeled into the delivery room display no physical evidence of being pregnant. Reminds me of a Doris Day / Rock Hudson film I recently saw [LOVER COME BACK?] where they were married as Day is being wheeled into the delivery room, also looking decidedly not-pregnant. Connie Shortes University of Texas at Austin Department of Radio-Television-Film ---- To signoff SCREEN-L, e-mail [log in to unmask] and put SIGNOFF SCREEN-L in the message. Problems? Contact [log in to unmask]