American cinema in 1973 brought us The Exorcist, American Graffiti, and least importantly The Baby. Never heard of The Baby? Basically, no one has outside of the people who made it and indoor kids who like bad movies (hi, me). The Baby is now a bizarre cult classic that I only saw because I passed its strange cover in the horror section of the video store. The Baby doesn’t sound like a scary title and the cover seemed more salacious than frightening. It showed a man’s leg dangling out of a baby crib with the tagline “what goes on in this nursery isn’t for kids!” oooOOOoooo what goes on in that nursery then?! I had to know, so I rented it and was pretty astounded by this super duper 1970s film with a mostly female cast and an absolutely ridiculous plot that would give Freud a big raging boner - and if you're into adult babies, you're about to get a big boner, too.
The Baby follows a caring social worker named Ann Gentry played by the lovely sixties starlet Anjanette Comer. Ann’s husband was in an accident which we see in a weird slideshow she watches with her creepy housekeeper in the beginning of the movie. She now spends her time diving into her work because she doesn’t need a man (but she does need a creepy old housekeeper?). She takes the case of a child named, simply, Baby. The problem is that this Baby is most definitely put in a corner. When Ann shows up to meet Baby she finds that he is actually a grown man dressed in a onesie who does not talk and only makes baby noises (which are dubbed in, making this performance even eerier). She actually doesn’t seem that bothered by it which might be this movie’s first (or third) red flag. She’s genuinely fascinated and tries to play with Baby. Baby is played expertly by David Mooney, by the way, who does look adorable sucking on his baba. I would give anything to watch the auditions to play the titular baby. Serious adult actors who trained with theater legends at the Stella Adler Institute having to crawl around on the floor and ask for a diapie change? Hilarious. Sign me up.
So, obviously, Ann is curious about what is going on here which Baby’s mom does not like one bit. Baby’s mom is a ball-busting mother who acts like the living answer to the question ‘what would Bette Davis be like in a Russ Meyer movie?’. Ann wonders if Baby’s Hag Horror mom is abusing him. The social worker wants to look into the family more, but the family doesn’t want her to take Baby away from them, so they try to stop her at all costs. That’s the movie! The entire time you’ll wonder: is Baby in on this somehow and will he eventually speak and walk like a grownup? The answer is simply no. Will you feel uncomfortable by the strange sexual undercurrents throughout this film? Oh, most definitely. That being said, I know that there are plenty of adult baby fetishists out there (those are adults who like to pretend to be babies). This is THE movie for you. Googoo gaga, enjoy this.
Insane plot, no? Yes, but that’s 70s exploitation for you. The 70s were obviously a time for uncomfortable movies that felt like they had to deal with the wake of change and trauma that happened in the previous decade which is why we wound up seeing the bulk of cinema’s craziest exploitation films in that lawless, cocaine-addled decade. The dreams of the flower children were dying and society was left dealing with the dark sides of hope and change. Along came horror! It’s no wonder that the 70s defined horror in a lot of ways (yes, The Baby is considered a horror film which is really fucking funny when you compare it to something like 1974's Black Christmas) with its bloody, messy movies that did everything from low-budget flicks like I Spit On Your Grave to the advent of slasher films like Halloween. Horror grapples with the era that it's made in and uses their nightmares as metaphors for societal issues.
Jammed in the middle of these iconic horror movies is The Baby. The Baby is really only a psycho-sexual horror film if you are a man who is scared of women taking away his power. This movie metaphorically deals with the exaggerated outcomes of the Women’s Liberation Movement. Like, from every angle. A grown man is literally forced into submission by being made to live his life as a helpless baby by his domineering mother who wears blue jeans. Blue jeans! Like how big strong cowboy men do! (Hot.) And then there is the social worker, working hard and living her life without her husband, who is trying to take Baby all for herself! How dare! You don’t need a film criticism degree — which I definitely do not have, but would gladly take an honorary one at any time thank you — to dissect what’s going on here.
It’s worth noting that director Ted Post went on to direct the Dirty Harry sequel Magnum Force, starring Alpha male hero Clint Eastwood. It actually took him a full year for the writer Abe Polsky to convince him to direct this piece because the subject matter was too dark and exploitative. Fun fact: Abe previously wrote a strange 1969 movie called The Gay Deceivers about two men who try to avoid military service by pretending to be gay — sort of like an I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry situation, but made in an era that made it seem a little less problematic.
Anyway, this kind of story is Abe’s bag, but it took some time for Post to come around to it. Ultimately the message of emasculation was strong enough to lure him (I’m guessing based on his other work) and we’re all forever blessed for that. Now enjoy the bath time scene and let it comfort you like a bottle of warm milk:
