The Miracle Worker

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