The Chapman Report

The Chapman Report is a 1962 American Technicolor drama film starring Shelley Winters, Jane Fonda, Claire Bloom and Glynis Johns. It was made by DFZ Productions and distributed by Warner Bros. It was directed by George Cukor and produced by Darryl F. Zanuck (who previously worked at WB until 1933) and Richard D. Zanuck, from a screenplay by Wyatt Cooper and Don Mankiewicz, adapted by Gene Allen and Grant Stuart from Irving Wallace's 1960 novel The Chapman Report. The original music was by Leonard Rosenman, Frank Perkins and Max Steiner, the cinematography by Harold Lipstein, the color coordination images and main title design by George Hoyningen-Huene, and the costume design by Orry-Kelly. Plot Noted psychologist Dr. George C. Chapman (Andrew Duggan), his assistant Paul Radford (Efrem Zimbalist Jr) and their staff are flying around the country conducting an anonymous sex survey of American women. They come to Los Angeles looking for volunteers in an affluent community called Briarwood. In a speech to the Briarwood Women's Club, Chapman says that “Too many women suffer from too little knowledge about a subject that occupies a major and crucial part of their lives...My associates and I believe that through our findings these women will come to realize that sex is decent, clean and dignified.“ The turnout at the club is lower than expected—82 instead of 150 women–because Dr. Jonas (Henry Daniell) is campaigning against the project. He tells Radford that he deplores the fact that all their research and writing is devoted to the physical act. “This is separating sex from affection, warmth, tenderness, devotion.” Dr. Jonas insists that by not discussing love at all, they allow people to believe—incorrectly—that the data on the physical act are the way to measure love. “People read the digits, make the comparisons, and then label themselves either normal or abnormal.” Dr. Jonas is also very concerned that the interviews, with their probing questions, may stir up trouble for some women—with no follow-through to help them. Radford later tells Chapman that Jonas has some good points. The film follows four of the participants: