One of America’s best known post WWII writers, Norman Mailer made his name as a novelist with The Naked and the Dead (1948) before proceeding to write more than 40 books and winning the Pulitzer Prize in fiction and non-fiction. Mailer also wrote and directed a number of films, including Maidstone (1970) and Tough Guys Don’t Dance (1987). In 1947, with his friend Millicent Bower, Mailer made an experimental film about a pregnant young woman who considers having an illegal abortion. Mailer’s first film, the 8-minute work tells its story through a battery of cinematic techniques: black & white and colour juxtaposition, animation, time-lapse photography, and microscopic close-ups. Never shown theatrically until after being preserved, the untitled film was all but unknown.