Change Your Image
Srrurhino
Reviews
Daddy's Gone A-Hunting (1969)
A right-to-life endorsement?
I hardly see how this qualifies as an endorsement of right-to-life politics. Apart from very superficial charm, the father (Kenneth) has no redeeming features whatsoever and, on top of that, he goes out of his way to menace the baby Cathy has with her husband. In fact, early in the picture (during the oh-so-mechanical exposition setting up the "thriller" part of the movie), she seems reluctant to have the abortion and willing to go home to London, presumably to have the baby there and raise him/her with the help of family. It's only AFTER Kenneth learns about the baby, proposes to Cathy, is rejected by her, slaps her across the face in public and threatens to stalk both her and his child-to-be that she decides to have the abortion, presumably to get Kenneth out of her life once and for all. The abortion sequence itself doesn't show much, but it's hardly glamorized as a "choice." If anything, the movie makes it clear why many women have abortions because that "choice" is the best one among a series of bad ones.
The abortion angle in the plot, however (pre Roe v. Wade), is one of the movie's few really interested angles (as well as the use of San Francisco as a backdrop).