Fantastic!

Excellent but underrated film

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

Social worker Anjanette Comer (as Ann Gentry) has a new case. She is to oversee government assistance going to the weird "Wadsworth" family. The client receiving checks is a young adult man called "Baby" (played by David Mooney aka David Manzy). Baby is well-named as he has remained intellectually a baby for 20-some-odd years. Baby's mother is deep-voiced Ruth Roman. She has two sexy grown-up daughters who have aged normally – relatively speaking... Meeting Baby on a "routine" visit isn't enough for Ms. Comer. She becomes unusually attached to Baby and begins visiting him frequently. Her boss worries about the time Comer spends with Baby and thinks about changing his social worker. Comer responds by telling him she has some suspicions about the case and begins investigating. Presumably, Comer suspects the wacky Wadsworth family has kept Baby infantile on purpose...This is a very strange film. The adult Baby wears diapers and speaks in genuine baby gibberish. He is so strange you're wondering what went wrong and where the story is headed. It sure fooled me. The other characters are interesting, too. Filmmakers and director Ted Post give it a naughty Gothic TV Movie atmosphere that works like a charm.******* The Baby (3/73) Ted Post ~ Anjanette Comer, Ruth Roman, David Mooney, Marianna Hill

I had completely forgotten this movie, which I first saw on television at least thirty years ago, until God only knows why it popped up on Turner Classic Movies.Presumably TCM considers this a "cult classic" and there are those who would agree, but I think that is just too generous. A lurid horror tale about a social worker (Anjanette Comer) who takes on the case of a family that is probably the textbook definition of "weird," assuming there is one, the story is stupid beyond belief, most of the acting is terrible, and the whole mess is just so...well, weird (I know I keep returning to that word but it's the only one that fits) that halfway through I confess I simply tuned out.The weird family in question consists of a matriarch (Ruth Roman), her two daughters (Marianna Hill and Suzanne Zenor), and the youngest child, a grown man (David Manzy) who apparently never progressed mentally out of babyhood; the film tries without much success to make the case that this only son was deliberately stunted by his family. Among the hints the film drops is the sisters' habit of abusing the kid with a cattle prod.Now, some of my favorite movies are really really bad: THE EVIL DEAD, THE NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD, HALLOWEEN III SEASON OF THE WITCH, just to name a few (and I doubt it is a coincidence that they are all horror movies). But I wasn't able to have any fun at all with this one. Ruth Roman makes an impression as one of the weirdest screen mothers of all time, but the movie is a terrible mess of weird ideas just thrown at the screen like overcooked pasta: no sauce and no taste. What makes the movies I mentioned above work is that there's usually at least ONE character in the mix that represents the "norm," an average person who finds him/herself trapped in a nightmare. Unfortunately, in THE BABY, the social worker, who SHOULD have represented sanity, is just as weird as the rest of the cast; this gives the actors playing the weird family nothing to play against. And it does not help that the acting by Marianna Hill and Suzanne Zenor as the daughters is several levels below high school drama club.I don't know what possessed Ruth Roman to appear in this Godawful piece of crap, but watching the film I can't help wondering if afterward she did not wish she had gone down with the Andrea Doria.I've seen some garbage come out of Hollywood, but this takes the cake.

Social worker Ann (Anjanette Comer) checks out on the strange Wadsworth family--there's a mother (Ruth Roman), her two daughters (Marianna Hill and Susanne Zenor) and Baby (David Mooney). Problem is is that Baby is 21 but still wears diapers, can't walk or talk and makes noises and acts like real baby. Ann becomes obsessed by Baby...and his mother and sisters don't like it.Let's get the bad out of the way first. They (unwisely) dub the sounds of a real baby on to the soundtrack when Baby is around. I can see why but it sounds silly and doesn't work. It's slow (especially towards the end) and the film logically doesn't work. Still it's an unsettling and creepy little film. Comer and Hill are good in their roles but exceptional work is done by Roman and Mooney. She's a tower of strength and you can feel her "love" for Baby. Mooney has a VERY tough job of wearing a diaper 90% of the time and crawling around in all fours--but he pulls it off. There's also two VERY disturbing sequences of a babysitter "nursing" Baby and his sister getting into the crib with him nude! It's all leads up to a surprise ending that was great and sick at the same time! Somehow this got a PG rating back in 1973 but this is definitely not for kids. For horror fans and people looking for something different--in a disturbing way.

The Baby is a fairly audacious exploitation movie covering one of the more obscure areas of sexual fetishism. That is to say male infantilism. It is not particularly pornographic but is certainly designed to appeal to the fantasies of the fem-dom enthusiast. The production qualities are high enough to take it out of the schlocky, Ed-Wood, B-movie genre. But the overall feel is of a sad, lonely man in a raincoat, thumbing his way through the pages of a paperback in a Soho basement.If we accept that then we can celebrate this curious little film for it's triumph. It has managed to transcend the limitations of bourgeois taste and provokes us into a new paradigm. If it had been directed by Peter Greenaway it would have been showered with awards. God rot it!!