Mother Didn't Tell Me


Mother Didn't Tell Me is a 1950 American comedy film written and directed by Claude Binyon. It is based on the 1949 book The Doctor Wears Three Faces by Mary Bard. The film stars Dorothy McGuire, William Lundigan, June Havoc, Gary Merrill, Jessie Royce Landis and Joyce MacKenzie. It was released on March 3, 1950 by Twentieth Century-Fox.

Plot

Advertising jingle writer Jane Morgan is treated for a cold by Dr. Bill Wright, and soon they date and fall in love. Jane is warned by Bill's mother and by another doctor's wife, Maggie, about the complications of being married to a doctor whose work often takes priority over his personal life.
Jane gives birth to twins, but her gradual frustration over Bill's absence is further irritated by his collaboration with Dr. Helen Porter, who is very attractive and makes Jane jealous. When she pretends to be ill in order to coax Bill into coming home, Jane is annoyed when Helen arrives to treat her instead.
Just as Jane is packed and preparing to leave her husband, their children are accidentally poisoned, but Bill is able to save them. Jane learns that Mrs. Wright, her mother-in-law, has persuaded Helen to take a job in another city.

Cast

Reception

In a contemporary review for The New York Times, critic Bosley Crowther wrote: "Although the light-headed young lady whom Dorothy McGuire plays in 'Mother Didn't Tell Me' is not named Claudia, she bears a most striking resemblance to that persistently popular dame. She is frankly and winsomely designing. She has a stubbornly jealous streak. Her innocence is overwhelming. And she is blissfully irrational. Too darned irrational, if you ask us! The lady's just short of being a dope. And that is the irretrievable weakness of this new comedy... Miss McGuire is compelled to play a lady whose perversities of wits are so absurd that the charms of her innocent nature are swamped in the backwash of her guff."