Lazybones (1925), To Each His Own (1946), The Snapper (1993), The Old Maid (1939), The Visit (1964), The Corn Is Green (1945), Belle (2013), Titanic (1953) ... Let's take a look at the ranked list of the best Illegitimate Child movies.
Storyline: "Lazybones" Steve (Buck Jones) is fawned over by his girlfriend, Agnes (Jane Novak) and doting mother. But, when he saves Agnes' sister from a suicide attempt, this loafer suddenly finds himself raising her secret newborn daughter, Kit. His easy life turns hard when the town assumes she's his illegitimate child. Steve is called to fight in World War I, and when he returns Kit is no longer a picked-on kid but a beautiful woman (Madge Bellamy). Then his love becomes not quite so paternal.
Plot Keywords: man, mother, adopted daughter, troubled woman, girlfriend, mother-in-law, mushy ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: During World War I, small-town girl Josephine Norris has an illegitimate son by an itinerant pilot. After a scheme to adopt him ends up giving him to another family, she devotes her life to loving him from afar.—Mark Foltz <foltz@triton.wustl.edu>
Plot Keywords: businesswoman, pilot, lord, wife, father, son, engaging ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Set in Ireland, Sharon Curley is a 20 year old living with her parents and many brothers and sisters. When she gets herself pregnant and refuses to name the father, she becomes the talk of the town.—Rob Hartill
Plot Keywords: daughter, mother, father, brother, sister, brash, gutsy ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: After a two-year absence, Clem Spender returns home on the very day that his former fiancée, Delia, is marrying another man. Clem enlists in the Union army and dies on the battlefield, but not before finding comfort in the arms of Delia's cousin, Charlotte Lovell. The years pass and Charlotte establishes an orphanage and eventually confesses to Delia that her dearest young charge, Tina, is an fact her own child by Clem. Jealousy and family secrets threaten to tear the cousins apart.—L. Hamre
Plot Keywords: adoptive mother, cousin, daughter, father, mother, emotional, melodramatic ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Karla Zachanassian had a child by Serge Miller as a teenager. When Serge refused to marry her, she was driven out of town. By her own wit and cunning, she has returned as a millionairess for a visit. The town lays out the red carpet expecting big things from Karla, only to learn that her sole purpose is to see Serge Miller killed...—Dave Kocsis <david.kocsis@delta-air.com>
Plot Keywords: wealthy woman, man, doctor, painter, innkeeper, emotional, disturbing ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Schoolteacher Lilly Moffat is dismayed by conditions in a Welsh mining town. She sets up a school to teach fundamental education to the villagers. Her housekeeper and daughter oppose the project, as does the local Squire who will not rent her space. Using part of her own home, she goes ahead with Miss Moffat's School. One of her students Morgan Evans turns from bully to brilliant student.—Ed Stephan <stephan@cc.wwu.edu>
Plot Keywords: schoolteacher, spinster, student, coal miner, squire, pregnant woman, moving ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: BELLE is inspired by the true story of Dido Elizabeth Belle (Gugu Mbatha-Raw), the illegitimate mixed race daughter of a Royal Navy Captain. Raised by her aristocratic great-uncle Lord Mansfield (Tom Wilkinson) and his wife (Emily Watson), Belle's lineage affords her certain privileges, yet the color of her skin prevents her from fully participating in the traditions of her social standing. Left to wonder if she will ever find love, Belle falls for an idealistic young vicar's son bent on change who, with her help, shapes Lord Mansfield's role as Lord Chief Justice to end slavery in England.
Plot Keywords: admiral, vicar, abolitionist, emotional, powerful, endearing, west indies ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Unhappily married and uncomfortable with life among the British upper crust, Julia Sturges takes her two children and boards the Titanic for America. Her husband Richard also arranges passage on the doomed luxury liner in order to let him have custody of their two children. Their problems soon seem minor when the ship hits an iceberg.—Daniel Bubbeo <dbubbeo@cmp.com>
Plot Keywords: husband, wife, captain, son, daughter, socialite, melodramatic ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Rural England, 1865. Katherine is stifled by her loveless marriage to a bitter man twice her age, whose family are cold and unforgiving. When she embarks on a passionate affair with a young worker on her husband's estate, a force is unleashed inside her, so powerful that she will stop at nothing to get what she wants.
Plot Keywords: lord, adulterer, maid, father, bride, servant, tense ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Mary Donnell was married at sixteen to a gangster and soon widowed. She works for unhappily married lawyer Lloyd Rogers. A client's son Jack elopes with her, but his father tracks them down and has the marriage annulled. Mary has a son. Unaware of this, the father remarries; his new wife is crippled in an auto accident. The lawyer, now dying, tells Mary he has left her money for her and her son, Rogers' widow suspects her husband may have been the father. Jack's ruthless father , upon learning that he is the grandparent of the child, threatens legal action to gain custody, but his son wants no part in separating little Jackie from his mother. Further, he reasserts his love for Mary and promises he will ask his now handicapped wife, Flip, for a divorce so that Jackie will have a real family. He instructs Mary to pack her belongings and get Jackie ready to leave so that the three can start a new life together. Before Jack has a chance to inform his now-handicapped wife, Flip, of these stunning developments, Flip pays an unexpected visit to Mary's apartment. To Mary's surprise, Flip makes a heartfelt, selfless plea for her to take Jack and make him happy as (in her words) she could no longer do. Mary is so struck by the offer and by Flip's true love for Jack, that she not only decides to cancel her plans to reunite with Jack, but also to ask Jack to adopt Jackie and, along with Flip, give him a 'proper' life in society. Jack enters the apartment and, in a whispered chat with Mary, is prevented from telling Flip that he ever had any intention of leaving her.—Ed Stephan <stephan@cc.wwu.edu>
Plot Keywords: bootlegger, widow, secretary, attorney, playboy, father, melodramatic ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Harriet Green, a beloved and radiant music hall star of the Edwardian era, has a guilty secret: She has a baby daughter, born out of wedlock. Harriet leaves her public and flees to South Africa to raise her daughter quietly. The years pass, and now her daughter, Harriet Hawkes, returns to London as a young show-biz hopeful. Tommy, a wily publicity man, knowing that young Harriet is a dead ringer for her famous mother, convinces a theater producer to star her in a new revue as none other than the original Harriet Green, miraculously untouched by old age. The ruse works too well: Now the public believes Harriet is a well-preserved 60-year-old and Tommy is her son. The deception is more than merely inconvenient, because now Harriet and Tommy have secretly fallen in love.—Dan Navarro <daneldorado@yahoo.com>
Plot Keywords: singer, daughter, ex-boyfriend, publicist, understudy, amusing, lighthearted ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Ephraim Cabot is an old man of amazing vitality who loves his New England farm with a greedy passion. Hating him, and sharing his greed, are the sons of two wives Cabot has overworked into early graves. Most bitter is Eben, whose mother had owned most of the farm, and who feels who should be sole heir. When the old man brings home a new wife, Anna, she becomes a fierce contender to inherit the farm. Two of the sons leave when Eben gives them the fare in return for their shares of the farm. Meanwhile, Anna tries to cause some sparks by rubbing up against Eben.—Ray Hamel <hamel@primate.wisc.edu>
Plot Keywords: widower, farmer, wife, slave, gripping, fascinating, melodramatic ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Nekhlyudov, a Russian nobleman serving on a jury, discovers that the young girl on trial, Katusha, is someone he once seduced and abandoned and that he himself bears responsibility for reducing her to crime. He sets out to redeem her and himself in the process.—Jim Beaver <jumblejim@prodigy.net>
Plot Keywords: aristocrat, servant, noblewoman, killer, prisoner, military officer, moving ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: A young boy tells the story of growing up in a fatherless home with his unmarried mother and four spinster aunts in 1930s Ireland. Five women different in temperament and capability from one another form a firm emotional support system for one another (reluctantly at times), with the eldest assuming the role of "somewhat meddling" overseer. Into this comes their elderly brother, a priest too senile to perform his clerical functions who has "come home to die" after a lifetime in Africa. Then the boy's father rides up on a motorcycle--to announce that he's on his way to Spain to fight against Franco. Although undeniably affected by the presence of the two men, the sisters continue to cope as a close-knit unit until something happens that disrupts the fabric of that cohesiveness beyond repair.—BOB STEBBINS <stebinsbob@aol.com>
Plot Keywords: sister, spinster, son, brother, teacher, missionary, amusing ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: In the 13th century, Walter of Gurnie, a disinherited Saxon youth, is forced to flee England. With his friend, the master archer Tris, he falls in with the army of the fierce but avuncular General Bayan, and journeys all the way to China, where both men become involved in intrigues in the court of Kublai Khan.—John Vogel <jlvogel@comcast.net>
Plot Keywords: nobleman, best friend, mysterious woman, warlord, enemy, striking, melodramatic ...
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