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Blind Major 
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TITLE |
Eye
on the Sparrow (1987) (TV Film) |
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NOTES |
This is the
true story of Ethel and James Lee who were the |
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first blind
couple in the U.S. to be able to adopt a child. |
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The film
starts with Ethel as a 11 year old child (in the |
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1930s?). The
actress playing her does appear to be blind. |
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She doesn't
go to school but a friend wants her to go to a |
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school for
the blind in St. Louis 60 miles away. Her parents |
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are against
though the law says that she must. There is an |
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odd scene
where her irrational father threatens the friend with |
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a rifle.
Nobody asks Ethel wants she wants.
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The father
dies and her mother takes her to the school. |
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Events then
jump to when Ethel is in her 20s and has had an |
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operation
which allows her to see. Her mother has died and |
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she has left
home. She lives in a building where there happen |
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to be other
blind people because not many landlords will rent |
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to the
blind. Then her sight starts to deteriorate and she is |
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told the
membrane is hardening. A quick cut shows her in a |
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hospital bed
where we infer she has tried to kill herself. But |
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soon she is
working in the hospital dark room (processing X- |
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rays I
think) and using a white stick. Ethel then meets Jim |
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who is at
the Missouri School for the Blind teaching braille, |
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piano tuning
and music. Ethel's blind friend is against her |
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marrying
someone who is blind -- "They'll limit each other." |
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Some time
after their wedding they see a doctor because |
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there is a
"sterility problem". The doctor won't say at first |
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which of
them and comments "chances are a child would |
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have been
visually handicapped." It's eventually revealed that |
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Jim is the
one who is sterile. So they turn to adoption |
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agencies who
unvaryingly turn them down. A child adopted by |
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a blind
couple would be a "victim of handicap". Still trying |
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they will
accept a "hard to place child", a "handicapped child".
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One agency
agrees to send out a social worker who offers |
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them a girl
but a review board then turns them down. While |
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the child
offered is blind herself it is considered that blind parents would be
limiting. Then because of the desperation of an agency they are
offered a foster child, a teenage girl who has been with many
families. Ethel's solution to the girl's
tantrums is to tan her which seems to work. Though we
today might look askance. Then Ethel and Jim get a 6 month
old baby whose father is an alcoholic and mother has been
put away in an institution. But that is only for 10 days while
the agency is trying to place her. They are asked to take
another child, a two year old boy who is visually impaired and
has learning difficulties. They want to adopt this boy but the
review board is against it. Ethel by now is using a guide dog
(Alsatian). Only after a number of battles are they in 1969
able to adopt him. Then, ironically, at 39 years old Ethel
becomes pregnant.
Mare Winningham's is probably the best portrayal of a blind
person I've seen. She also played Helen Keller in Helen
Keller: The Miracle Continues (1984).
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Notes
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