From Generation to Generation

Cinephile deep dive

The take

Francis Thompson directs. Runs lean at under 100 minutes. Produced in United States of America.

Trivia

Things worth knowing

• 1Tight 30-minute runtime — shorter than most television pilots.
• 267 years old — a genuine piece of film history.
• 3Lean credit list — fewer than 30 people officially credited.
• 4IMDB entry: tt0052827 — still the authoritative cross-reference for credits and trivia.
• 5Only 3 TMDB ratings — you're getting ahead of the curve on this one.

The technical file

Runtime

30 min · 0h 30m

Status

Released

Original language

EN

IMDB

From Generation to Generation (1959) ↗

Also by

Francis Thompson

• 
  To Be Alive!

  1964 · ★ 7.4
• 
  N.Y., N.Y.

  1957 · ★ 6.9
• 
  City Out of Wilderness

  1974 · ★ 6.5
• 
  We Are Young

  1967
• 
  Fears of Children

  1951
• 
  Whaler out of New Bedford

  1961

Community reviews

What people are saying

• CinemaSerf2026-05-01
  ★ 6/10

  This could have been one of those information films that got us sniggering at school, but instead it studiously avoids any reference to sex as it takes thirty minutes to do what nature takes nine months to achieve. Using some perfectly adequate animated drawings, we follow a lone ovum (I don't think the word egg is ever actually used) as it makes it's way out of it's harbour and into the path of millions of marauding sperm. The narration decides not to inform us of just how those little critters get into her tubes, but does inform us of one lucky cell that penetrates the ovum and that's how life begins! The growth into an embryo and beyond is depicted in similarly animated style, augmented by a terribly cheesy soundtrack and some images of both nature and of a loving couple - we can tell because they hold hands - and their enthusiastic young son who appears to be in constant need of hugs, but without any actuality of the childbirthing process. It's a tricky subject for educationalists to deliver without embarrassing the viewers or upsetting the sentimentalities of the parents whose children this is undoubtedly for, so it steers a fairly safe course that presents enough science but does rather turn the entire process into something sterile - in both visual and descriptive terms. It does present some interesting facts, and is worth a look - if only to remind us of how we were taught sixty-odd years ago.

  Read full review ↓

Key crew

• AnimationPhilip Stapp

Release history · US

When it landed

• Theatrical1959-01-01