Plot
Brad Sheridan (Milland), a newspaper columnist, and wife, Midge Sheridan (Tierney), cannot have children of their own; and, they decide to adopt. The adoption agency tells Midge the waiting list is long; however, Midge learns of an abandoned child left at the police station. The police tell Midge the child, a boy named Danny, is a ward of the juvenile court. Brad and Midge visit the child under the ruse of Midge being Brad's secretary. Brad thinks their chances to adopt Danny are slim if the child is placed with the adoption agency because of the long wait. Midge continues to visit Danny and becomes attached. Brad, not wanting to become too emotionally involved, writes a column disclosing the child's abandonment, angering Midge. Mrs. Morrow, from the adoption agency, inspects the Sheridan's home, but warns them that adopting Danny is risky due to the child's un-investigated background. Danny is not wanted by other prospective adoptive parents because he is a "foundling," which clears a path for the Sheridans to adopt him. Brad is told of a well-known local couple's adopted son becoming an adult criminal, with his adoptive parents only then discovering he came from an irreputable background.
Brad's investigation leads him to an apartment and a woman named Arlene who tells Brad that Danny's mother, named Martha, died giving birth at the apartment building. Arlene lied to authorities that the child's father took the baby, and she took the child herself. She gives Brad a ring belonging to Martha. Without Midge's knowledge, Brad begins an investigation of Martha's history. The operator of a boarding house where Martha stayed, gives Brad a sweater that belonged to Martha. Brad tells Midge of his efforts to investigate Danny's background. Mrs. Morrow from the adoption agency warns Midge that Brad should stop his investigation; and, the agency cannot go forward with the adoption unless he does. Meanwhile, Brad discovers Martha was a reputable schoolteacher who was keeping company with a man, named Edward Hewitt, who Brad suspects accompanied Martha to Reno to marry her. Brad directs a photo of Hewitt be published for identification. Mrs. Morrow recognizes Hewitt's photo, informs Midge that Hewitt is incarcerated for murder, and tells her the adoption cannot go forward.
Brad visits Hewitt at San Quentin State Prison. Brad tells Hewitt, whose real name is Everett Heilner, that he has a son and Martha died giving birth. A callous Hewitt says there was no place in his life for a child and tells Brad the boy will "never be a cop." Brad returns home and learns from an embittered Midge the agency took Danny in order to protect Danny from Brad. Brad rushes out to retrieve the child but is stopped by the court's probation officer. Brad convinces Mrs. Morrow to approve the adoption by describing how a meeting with Heilner's brother convinced him that nurturing a child is more important than the nature of the child's background.
Adoption is a process whereby a person assumes the parenting of another, usually a child, from that person's biological or legal parent or parents. Legal adoptions permanently transfer all rights and responsibilities, along with filiation, from the biological parents to the adoptive parents.
Gene Eliza Tierney was an American film and stage actress. Acclaimed for her great beauty, she became established as a leading lady. She was best known for her portrayal of the title character in the film Laura (1944), and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance as Ellen Berent Harland in Leave Her to Heaven (1945).
The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side, a novel by Agatha Christie, was published in the UK in 1962 and a year later in the US under the title The Mirror Crack'd. The story features amateur detective Miss Marple solving a mystery in St. Mary Mead.
The international adoption of South Korean children started around 1953 as a measure to take care of the large number of mixed children that became orphaned during and after the Korean War. It quickly evolved to include orphaned Korean children. Religious organizations in the United States, Australia, and many Western European nations slowly developed the apparatus that sustained international adoption as a socially integrated system.
International adoption is a type of adoption in which an individual or couple residing in one country becomes the legal and permanent parent(s) of a child who is a national of another country. In general, prospective adoptive parents must meet the legal adoption requirements of their country of residence and those of the country whose nationality the child holds.
Closed adoption is a process by which an infant is adopted by another family, and the record of the biological parent(s) is kept sealed. Often, the biological father is not recorded—even on the original birth certificate. An adoption of an older child who already knows their biological parent(s) cannot be made closed or secret. This used to be the most traditional and popular type of adoption, peaking in the decades of the post-World War II Baby Scoop Era. It still exists today, but it exists alongside the practice of open adoption. The sealed records effectively prevent the adoptee and the biological parents from finding, or even knowing anything about each other. However, the emergence of non-profit organizations and private companies to assist individuals with their sealed records has been effective in helping people who want to connect with biological relatives to do so.
Disruption is ending an adoption. While technically an adoption is disrupted only when it is abandoned by the adopting parent or parents before it is legally completed, in practice the term is used for all adoptions that are ended. It is usually initiated by the parents via a court petition, much like a divorce, to which it is analogous.
More adoptions occur in California each year than any other state. There is domestic adoption, international adoption, step parent adoption and adult adoption.
In the United States, adoption is the process of creating a legal parent–child relationship between a child and a parent who was not automatically recognized as the child's parent at birth.
Open adoption is a form of adoption in which the biological and adoptive families have access to varying degrees of each other's personal information and have an option of contact. While open adoption is a relatively new phenomenon in the west, it has been a traditional practice in many Asian societies, especially in South Asia, for many centuries. In Hindu society, for example, it is relatively common for a childless couple to adopt the second or later son of the husband's brother when the childless couple has limited hope of producing their own child.
The Minnesota / Texas Adoption Research Project (MTARP) is a longitudinal research study that focuses on the consequences of variations in openness in adoption arrangements for all members of the adoptive kinship network: birthmothers, adoptive parents, and adopted children, and for the relationships within these family systems.
Beulah George "Georgia" Tann was an American social worker and child trafficker who operated the Tennessee Children's Home Society, an unlicensed adoption agency in Memphis, Tennessee. Tann used the home as a front for her black market baby adoption scheme from the 1920s to 1950. Young children were kidnapped and then sold to wealthy families, abused, or—in some instances—murdered. A state investigation into numerous cases of adoption fraud led to the institution's closure in 1950. Tann died of cancer before the investigation made its findings public.
One Good Cop is a 1991 American crime drama film written and directed by Heywood Gould and starring Michael Keaton, Rene Russo, Anthony LaPaglia and Benjamin Bratt. Keaton portrays New York City Police Department Detective Artie Lewis, who, with his wife Rita (Russo), adopts his late partner's (LaPaglia) children and loves them as their own. He also targets one of the criminals responsible for his partner's death. He initially seeks justice for his adoptive children, but ultimately chooses retaliation by robbing his quarry to support his new family, endangering them and his career.
Second Noah is a television drama that was broadcast in the United States on ABC television from February 5, 1996, to June 8, 1997.
Tennessee Children's Home Society was a chain of orphanages that operated in the state of Tennessee during the first half of the twentieth century. It is most often associated with Georgia Tann, its Memphis branch operator and child trafficker who was involved in the kidnapping of children and their illegal adoptions.
Child laundering is a tactic used in illegal or fraudulent international adoptions. It may involve child trafficking and child acquisition through payment, deceit or force. The children may then be held in sham orphanages while formal adoption processes are used to send them to adoptive parents in another country.
There are several notable cultural variations in adoption. Adoption is an arrangement by which an orphaned child or one whose biological parents are unable to care for them is "adopted". While all societies make provision for the rearing of children whose own parents are unavailable to care for them, cultures and legal systems treat an adopted child in different ways ranging from equivalent status to legitimate biological children to guardianship.
The British Association for Adoption and Fostering (BAAF) was a membership association formed in 1980 and a registered charity. Membership was open to organisations and individuals concerned with child adoption and fostering. Corporate members included local authorities, independent fostering agencies, voluntary adoption agencies, NHS trusts, law firms and voluntary organisations. Individual members included social workers, health professionals, law professionals, adopters and foster carers. BAAF's 2013–14 annual review reported a corporate membership of more than 450 and 1400 individual members.
Adoption in the Philippines is a process of granting social, emotional and legal family and kinship membership to an individual from the Philippines, usually a child. It involves a transfer of parental rights and obligations and provides family membership. The Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) defines adoption as a "socio-legal process of giving a permanent family to a child whose parents have voluntarily or involuntarily given up their parental rights."
Adoption does not exist formally as a practice in Jewish Law (Halacha), although rabbinic texts were not uniform on whether or not they recognized the validity of adoption and several examples of adoption take place in the Hebrew Bible and texts from the Second Temple Judaism. The Hebrew word for adoption ‘אימוץ’ (immutz), which derives from the verb ‘אמץ’ (amatz) in Psalm 80 verse 16 and 18 meaning ‘to make strong’, was not introduced until the modern age. Jewish perspectives towards adoption promote two contradictory messages towards nurture and nature. On the one hand, Judaism expresses favourable attitudes towards adoption across religious movements and is widely viewed as a good deed (mitzvah). Based on the Talmudic teachings that when one raises an orphan in their home, "scripture ascribes it to him as though he had begotten him," rabbis have argued that the commandment of procreation can also be fulfilled through the act of adoption. However, this interpretation raises a number of questions in relation to lineage and biological status, which is a core value in Halacha.
