“The story you’re about to see is true.  It’s happening right now.  The subject is illegal abortions.” — The narrator (Barney Brio) at the beginning of The Shame of Patty Smith (1962)

I began this series on embracing the melodrama by taking a look at one of the most anti-abortion films ever made, 1916’s Where Are My Children?  It, therefore, seems only appropriate that the first melodrama that I review from the 1960s should be a film that argued for the right to legal and safe abortion eleven years before the Supreme Court’s historic Roe v Wade decision, 1962’s The Shame of Patty Smith.

As with many a great melodrama, this film features a narrator.  He informs us that Patty Smith (played by an instantly sympathetic actress named Dani Lynn) is an “average girl with an average life and average dreams.”  One night, while she’s out on a date with Alan (Carlton Crane), she is attacked and raped by three thugs in leather jackets who speak like they’ve wandered over from the set of High School Confidential.  Afterwards, Alan tells her, “Three against one … there wasn’t much I could do…still, it was horrible to watch.”  He follows this up by advising her to “Try to forget about the whole thing.”

When Patty discovers that she’s pregnant, Alan refuses to speak to her and the stress causes her to make so many mistakes at her job that she ends up getting fired.  Not wishing to tell her religious parents what has happened, Patty goes to sympathetic Dr. Miller (J. Edward McKinney) and tells him that she simply cannot have a child.  Dr. Miller tells her that he sympathizes with her situation but, legally, he cannot help her.  All he can do is offer to help her put the baby up for adoption after she gives birth.

With the help of her roommate Mary (Merry Anders), Patty starts to search for a doctor who will perform the illegal procedure.  She manages to find one reputable doctor but he explains that he will need 600 dollars in cash because he could quite literally end up in jail for helping her.  Patty does not have that type of money.

Growing increasingly desperate, Patty eventually does find someone to help her.  This “doctor” (who, the narrator informs us, is actually a former pharmacist) works out of a massage parlor.  From the minute that Patty is picked up by one of the doctor’s associates to the moment that she finally steps into the pharmacist’s filthy operating room, The Shame of Patty Smith takes on the feel of a true nightmare.  For the final 30 minutes or so of the film, the screen is filled with such seediness that you literally feel the need to take a shower after watching it.  Director Leo A. Handel directs these scenes as if he were making a horror film (and, in many ways, he was) and Dani Lynn’s sensitive and frightened performance make these scenes all the more disturbing and tragic.

The Shame of Patty Smith is a real surprise.  Largely based on the title and the fact that Something Weird Video included The Shame of Patty Smith as part of a double feature with You’ve Ruined Me, Eddie!, I assumed that this would be your typical low budget melodrama.  I figured that it might be good for a few laughs and that it might have a few moments of unintentional clarity.

Instead, it turns out that The Shame of Patty Smith is a serious-minded, well acted, and thought-provoking look at one of the most important issues facing America today.  One reason that I found Patty Smith to be such a fascinating film was the fact that it was made before Roe v. Wade.  I think sometimes we hear a term like “back alley abortion” so many times that the words run the risk of losing their ominous power but Patty Smith, in detail that is chilling precisely because it is presented in such a matter-of-fact way, actually takes us into the back alley.  Those of us who were born long after the Roe V. Wade decision are often too quick to take for granted the idea that abortion has always been legaland safe and that it always will be.

A film like The Shame of Patty Smith serves to remind us of how things once were and how they very well could be again.