Born deaf, dumb and blind, Hellen Keller (Patty Duke) is lost in a world she cannot fathom. Arthur Penn’s film shows how her stubborn new teacher, “half-blind Yankee schoolgirl” Annie Sullivan (Anne Bancroft) gradually breaks through to instill the idea of language, a process that is grueling and even violent on both sides. Both leads had played these parts on Broadway under Penn’s direction (Bancroft won a Tony, and went on to win an Academy Award, as did Duke in the supporting category).
The Miracle Worker was Penn’s third staging (after Broadway and TV) of Helen Keller’s domestication, a film that storms where most biopics respectfully tiptoe. The centerpiece is a one-room, nine-minute war of attrition, as a tutor (Anne Bancroft) imposes table manners on her feral charge (Patty Duke). It’s a heaving, shin-cracking donnybrook, done with complete commitment.
Nick Pinkerton, Village Voice
It’s the only film where I start crying before the credits begin.
Robin Wood
Patty Duke and Anne Bancroft spark off each other with a violence and emotional honesty rarely seen in the cinema, lighting up each other’s loneliness, vulnerability, and plain fear.
Geoff Andrew, Time Out
Arthur Penn
Anne Bancroft, Patty Duke, Victor Jory, Inga Swenson
USA
1962
English
Academy Awards, Best Actress (Bancroft); Best Supporting Actress (Duke)
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Credits
Screenwriter
William Gibson
Cinematography
Ernesto Caparrós
Editor
Aram Avakian
Original Music
Laurence Rosenthal
Art Director
George Jenkins
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