A Question of Adultery: how an X-rated 1950s drama tackled the subject of artificial insemination

Human artificial insemination (now referred to using the less baldly clinical term IVF) was first practised in the 18th century, but it wasn’t until the 1930s that British couples were able to take advantage of a specialised service to assist pregnancy. In the late 1940s, the practice was being debated in the press, as the Church of England commissioned a report to examine its “theological, social, psychological, and legal implications”.

This naturally led to cultural engagement with the topic, and on 26 October 1948 the play Breach of Marriage opened at the Torch Theatre in Knightsbridge. Its author, Dan Sutherland, apparently completed it in five days, in response to the theatre’s request for a ‘punchy’ play to fill a gap in the schedule, and it certainly fulfilled that remit, being dubbed “the most outspoken play ever presented in Britain”.

The sensational publicity kept the play running until 5 December before transferring to the Duke of York’s Theatre in January 1949. However, its success was not purely due to the sensational theme; the critics hailed it a play with “dignity and taut dramatic excitement” that accomplished “a difficult task with tact, intelligence and understanding”.

It wasn’t the play’s tact or intelligence that caught the eye of independent film producer Raymond Stross in the early 1950s. With a career in distribution behind him, he had just established himself as a feature producer and acquired a small cinema chain. He was keen to show films on sensational subjects, later covering prostitution in The Flesh Is Weak (1957) and homosexuality in The Leather Boys (1964), so Sutherland’s play was right up his street.

He picked up the rights in 1952 and brought in American writer-director Herbert Kline to adapt it for the screen. Kline had made anti-Hitler films in the 1930s, travelled to Spain during the civil war and worked on The Forgotten Village, John Steinbeck’s 1941 documentary about Mexico. His collaboration with Raymond Stross must have been a change of intellectual pace, but Kline was in the UK to escape the attention of the House Un-American Activities Committee, which led him, like many ex-Hollywood figures, in unlikely creative directions.

The collaboration with Kline didn’t bear fruit, but, while in America in 1953, Stross saw a television drama that caught his eye and decided that its writer, Al Edwards, was someone he could work with. When they met at Stross’s hotel, the English producer made a striking impression on the young writer:

“I was not prepared for Raymond Stross… 5’5” and squarely built, he walked like a bantam cock and was… coiffed and costumed… to play Brutus in some new-wave-theater… production – hair swept over his forehead, heavy gold chains around his neck, the top… buttons of his shirt opened to display them.”

But if Edwards was unprepared for Stross, Stross was equally taken aback to meet ‘Al Edwards’, who turned out to be a woman called Anne.

At the time, Edwards was also under threat of subpoena by the House Un-American Activities Committee, due to her marriage to the nephew of blacklisted director Robert Rossen. In need of money and a way out of her situation, she pitched Stross an idea for a story about artificial insemination, based on a news report she’d read. The coincidence convinced Stross of her suitability, and he brought her over to London to adapt Breach of Marriage, though it was to take five years for the film to reach the screen. 

Stross put this down to the squeamishness of producers in the early 1950s who, he claimed, “treated the public like five-year-olds”. There was certainly a change of mood later in the decade, with social realist dramas like Room at the Top (1958) bringing controversial subjects to the screen, and it was the success of The Flesh Is Weak that convinced Stross that the time was right for the film.

The plot of Edwards’ screen version revolves around American singer Mary Loring, who gives up her career to appease her jealous racing driver husband Mark. When an accident leaves him paralysed and sterile, Mary seeks an alternative way to get pregnant, and they visit a fertility clinic. But, under pressure from his father, Mark files for divorce on the basis that she’s having a baby by another man. The play ended with the husband pushing his wheelchair over a cliff, but Edwards’ script sees the couple reconciled at the close.

On Stross’s instruction, Edwards wrote in a scene that aimed to emulate the famous ‘sex in the sand’ sequence in From Here to Eternity (1953). At the first meeting with the BBFC, Edwards fully expected this to be cut from the script, along with shots of test tubes containing ‘samples’. However, neither of these concerned the examiners, though they did object to the frequent use of the word ‘panties’, along with mentions of ‘intercourse’ and ‘climax’.

With Don Chaffey directing, filming on A Question of Adultery began in late November 1957 at National Studios, Elstree. American singer Julie London was cast as Mary Loring, while Anthony Steel took the role of her impotent husband Mark. In real life Steel had no such problems, and earlier in the decade had been ‘the other man’ himself. While making the film Something Money Can’t Buy in 1952, he had an extra-marital affair with co-star Patricia Roc, which resulted in pregnancy. The scandal was hushed up and Roc’s husband, cinematographer André Thomas, who was infertile, agreed to raise Steel’s child as his own.

Julie London’s role as Mary is a thankless one, though she gives a wonderful rendition of the song ‘My Strange Affair’, written by her soon-to-be-husband Bobby Troup. A Question of Adultery didn’t give either of its stars much scope for subtle performance, as the Evening Standard review reveals: “Mr Steel’s acting never goes beyond bursts of tantrums; Miss London’s never farther than reaching for a handkerchief to wipe away the tears.”

The film opened exclusively at the Cameo-Poly and Cameo-Royal in July 1958, with an X certificate from the BBFC, then got nationwide distribution on the ABC circuit from 13 October. Though Raymond Stross wasn’t in the film business to effect social change, he declared it “a serious document that has undeniable integrity”. The critics begged to differ, and perhaps if Edwards had stuck more closely to Sutherland’s lauded play then reviews may have been kinder. Even The Star wrote witheringly that the film: “Takes up the delicate question of artificial insemination and drops it rather heavily.”

It’s certainly a rather clumsy study in toxic masculinity, especially the unpleasant scene in which Mark forces himself on Mary on the beach. However, this sequence is effectively intercut with a dramatic flamenco routine by Australian actor Trader Faulkner. Trader was a protégé of Peter Finch, who helped him in his acting career, and years later he wrote an affectionate biography of his mentor. He had developed a love of flamenco and became an expert dancer, thus adding this unusual skill to his CV. 

In later years, Trader was a familiar face at the BFI, working as one of the actors employed to ‘perform’ the dialogue for unsubtitled foreign films, which was delivered via bakelite headphones attached to every cinema seat.

A Question of Adultery survives thanks to Raymond Stross’s foresight in donating his back catalogue to the BFI National Archive in 1975. His original 1958 release print of the film is available to view or screen, a little scratched but possibly saved from too much wear and tear by its modest theatrical run. A flawed but fascinating early example of British exploitation, it certainly helped to push the boundaries in depicting provocative issues on screen.