The Baby (1973)

Anjanette Comer: Ann Gentry

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Quotes 

• Ann Gentry : What about the family income?

  Mrs. Wadsworth : Just what the county gives us for Baby.

  Ann Gentry : Your daughters, are they employed?

  Mrs. Wadsworth : Are my daughters... no, they help out the best they can, but it doesn't come to too much. Alba gives tennis lessons in the afternoon and Jermaine...

  Germaine Wadsworth : Once in a while I do a TV commercial.

  Mrs. Wadsworth : Sometimes I don't know how we make ends meet, but we always seem to manage.

  Ann Gentry : Isn't there any money from your husband's pension? Or his social security?

  Mrs. Wadsworth : Why no, how could there be?

  Germaine Wadsworth : [laughs]  She thinks he's dead.

  Mrs. Wadsworth : [laughs]  That man didn't die.

  Germaine Wadsworth : No such luck.

  Mrs. Wadsworth : It happened just before Baby was born. When I needed him most, he ran off and left us. But then all that's in the record.

  Ann Gentry : Oh I'm sure it is.

  Mrs. Wadsworth : My husband was a very weak man, Mrs. Gentry.

  Germaine Wadsworth : No character.

  Mrs. Wadsworth : None at all.

  Ann Gentry : And you've had no contact with him since he left?

  Mrs. Wadsworth : As far as I'm concerned, he might as WELL be dead.

• Ann Gentry : You do this every day, Mrs. Wadsworth?

  Mrs. Wadsworth : Have to, or the muscles'll go bad.

  Ann Gentry : His legs seem perfectly normal, I'm surprised he doesn't walk.

• Mr. Foley : Ann, I'm not asking you to drop it, just pull back, compromise.

  Ann Gentry : Mr. Foley, this case is full of compromise, and indifference, and criminal negligence, and we're responsible.

  Mr. Foley : Ann, you exaggerate. Other workers have put time in on this case and they've come up with no significant results.

  Ann Gentry : None of those other workers spent enough time on the case to accomplish anything.

  Mr. Foley : That's not true, one did, and...

  Ann Gentry : Yes, one did, and just when she was beginning to make progress, she disappeared.

  Mr. Foley : People drop out of sight, it happens.

  Ann Gentry : Not very often.

  Mr. Foley : Well the police looked into it, they were satisfied.

  Ann Gentry : But I'm not.

• Ann Gentry : When was the last time Baby was examined by a psychologist? Psychological tests to determine his mental range and physical reactions?

  Germaine Wadsworth : He had all those tests when he was a baby.

  Ann Gentry : But he must've had more tests since then.

  Germaine Wadsworth : No, there didn't seem to be any reason for it. Why?

  Ann Gentry : Nothing in particular, just a thought.

• Ann Gentry : Mrs. Wadsworth, if I could convince you that Baby is capable of growth and development, you wouldn't stand in his way, would you?

  Mrs. Wadsworth : Of course not, what mother would?

  Ann Gentry : Well then I think you should consider putting Baby into a special clinic for the retarded.

  Mrs. Wadsworth : Clinic? You mean like a hospital?

  Ann Gentry : Oh no, not like a hospital. It's a day clinic, more like a school, where Baby could be with other people like himself, it's really the best way, maybe the only way.

• Mrs. Wadsworth : Are you going to be Baby's new worker?

  Ann Gentry : I don't mind telling you, Mrs. Wadsworth, I made a special effort to get this assignment.

  Mrs. Wadsworth : Oh you did? And why is that?

  Ann Gentry : Well I, I heard about the case from one of the other workers, and it was impossible not to be interested.

  Mrs. Wadsworth : I see.

• Ann Gentry : I notice you call him Baby. And the case history doesn't show any other name; what is his real name?

  Germaine Wadsworth : Just Baby.

• Ann Gentry : I only thought...

  Mrs. Wadsworth : Maybe you think too much. When it comes to Baby, I do all the thinking.

• Doctor : What's your special interest in this case?

  Ann Gentry : Can you think of anything more horrible than being buried alive? Well that's what's happened to this client. He's been imprisoned by a kind of sick love. He's a normal full grown man, trapped with no way out.

  Doctor : There's something here I don't understand. If he isn't seriously retarded, then how do you account for the fact that he can't walk, talk?

  Ann Gentry : Negative reinforcement, some kind of consistent punishment to discourage him from normal learning.

  Doctor : That's a pretty serious charge.

  Ann Gentry : Well they're a pretty strange family, especially the mother. Each child is by a different man, and all of them abandoned her. Now the last one she was married to, Baby's father, and I think when he left, she just never got over it. So she's taking revenge on the only male member of the family.