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Terrible acting, screenplay and direction.

Such a frustrating disappointment

Bad Acting and worse Bad Screenplay

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

Rendered blind and deaf by disease during her infancy, a young girl is gradually taught how to communicate by a compassionate teacher in this drama based on Helen Keller's life. The film is atmospherically shot in stark black and white by Arthur Penn, a director smart enough to realise that the physical interactions of his protagonists are pivotal for a film about a girl who cannot see or hear; the most intense scene has virtually no dialogue as co-leads Anne Bancroft and Patty Duke wrestle in the family dining room. Both actresses are very good too - Bancroft in particular - and it is a shame that the same cannot be said of the supporting cast. Inga Swenson is so histrionic as Keller's mother that she is hard to watch, with only Victor Jory as Keller's insensitive father offering a more over-the-top turn; the opening pre-credits scene in which they discover Keller's condition is particularly melodramatic stuff. Andrew Prine is also dull as Keller's brother. Fortunately, much of the screen time is taken up by the lead actresses gradually coming to understand each other in the only way that a deaf and blind person could. The film is quite thought provoking along these lines, highlighting the difficulty of functioning in a world in which one cannot communicate or understand what is going on, and while one does have to endure a second rate supporting cast, it is worth it.

This lean film adapted by William Gibson from his own stage play gets right down to business. This is not a biopic about Helen Keller or Annie Sullivan. We learn some background details about both that give their characters some context, but no more time than necessary is spent on them. Instead, this film is almost exclusively about Sullivan's time with Keller's family spent teaching Keller to communicate and her eventual breakthrough. It's an incredibly physical film -- since Keller couldn't hear, see, or speak, touch was the only sense through which she could communicate, and her family allowed her to slam, smack, and pound her way through life until she got what she wanted. Sullivan at first meets her at her own level, throwing her down into chairs, smacking her back when smacked herself, tackling her to the ground. Anne Bancroft, as Sullivan, and Patty Duke, as Keller, are sensational in these scenes and director Arthur Penn captures them with an insistent intensity. The whole film has an unsettling quality even when nothing unsettling is happening on screen, mainly due to Penn's decision to give the film the look and sound of a horror movie, with creepy, film-noir cinematography and eerie sound design.Bancroft and Duke both won Oscars for their performances, while the film brought nominations to Penn as Best Director, Gibson for Best Adapted Screenplay, and Ruth Morley for her black and white costumes.Grade: A

A moving story, covering the childhood years of blind-deaf Helen Keller and how her tutor Annie Sullivan helped her.Does require a fair bit of perseverance, however. The first half is quite painful to watch, as Keller does random, almost malicious things, without any sign that her behaviour will change. This also involves a few "fight" scenes between her and Sullivan, scenes that seem to go on far too long and are far too frequent.Add in an incredibly irritating, overacted performance by Victor Jory as the stupid-yet-very opinionated father - his idea of acting seems to be shouting very loudly, all the time - and the movie is set to be a massive test of patience.Gets better, however, and the ending is quite emotional.

Many of the previous comments and reviews of "The Miracle Worker" have detailed the amazing story of Helen Keller (1890-1968)----a child born with normal vision and hearing who became blind and deaf at nineteen months of age due to a tragic illness. Annie Sullivan rescued this remarkable child from a life of virtual isolation. As a result, Helen became an honor graduate of Radcliffe College (1904), a world famous author-lecturer and a greatly admired inspirational role model for the disabled.This story is best known to us through the play and film---both starring Anne Bancroft as Annie and Patty Duke as Helen.The play won the Tony Award for the best play of the year in the 1959-1960 season (running for 719 performances), and Bancroft received the best actress Tony Award for her leading role. The play garnered two other Tony Awards-----including best director for Arthur Penn.The film was similarly honored with Oscars to Bancroft (best actress) and Duke (best supporting actress) for 1962. They reprised their earlier stage roles. It also received Oscar nominations for Penn (best director) and William Gibson (best adapted screenplay).But lest we forget----the very first presentation of the Helen Keller story in a visual medium came on Feb. 7, 1957. It was the 19th episode during the first season of Playhouse 90----one of the greatest gems of the Golden Age of Television. This is where the Gibson-Penn collaboration first began. It had a different cast then---Teresa Wright played Annie and Patty McCormack was Helen. McCormack was then 11 years of age when she played the considerably younger real Helen, whereas Duke was almost 13 when she first appeared in the play. The Playhouse 90 version was introduced by Mickey Rooney, who pointed out that this was an original story by Gibson that had never been seen before. Wright received an Emmy Award best actress nomination but lost out to Polly Bergen in the Playhouse 90 broadcast of "The Helen Morgan Story." I recently had the good fortune to be in New York City and visited the remarkable Paley Center for Media on West 52nd Street---one of the city's truly outstanding destinations. Among its many archival treasures is the Playhouse 90 "The Miracle Worker." I saw it again for the first time in over 50 years, and would like to offer a few comments about it.In my opinion, Wright's portrayal of Annie surpassed Bancroft's. Wright projected an impressive young woman who also had warmth and humor. She made Annie a believable person with real strengths and weaknesses. Bancroft's performance always seemed structured, edgy and essentially an actor's creation rather than a stab at reality---without Wright's humanity and empathy. I wonder whether Wright was ever offered the opportunity to reprise her role in the play when it was cast. McCormack presented a Helen that occasionally exhibited a mischievous streak in addition to frustration and anger. I don't recall that aspect as clearly in Duke's performance. Also, McCormack was somewhat closer in age to the real Helen when the events of the depicted story actually occurred. Both gave us stunning performances for child actors.The week following Playhouse 90's "The Miracle Worker," Mickey Rooney starred in its production of Rod Serling's "The Comedian." It won the Emmy Award for 1957's Best Single Program of the Year. "The Miracle Worker" had not even been nominated for this award. Today, nobody remembers "The Comedian." But most everyone knows and admires "The Miracle Worker" in all its versions.When you have the opportunity, check out the Playhouse 90 broadcast at the Paley Center for Media. You will find it to be an experience that is well worth your time. It will provide you with interesting and compelling performances of Annie and Helen that differ in many ways from those most of us are familiar with from the much better known play and film.