People are voting emotionally.

Disturbing yet enthralling

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

This wonderful, tear-jerking and eventually heartwarming, compelling true story of the early (the breakthrough) years of Helen Keller and her teacher Annie Sullivan, who stubbornly helps the belligerent violent child to overcome the frustration due to her handicaps (blind, deaf, and dumb) and learned to communicate (e.g. through sign language) is an essential biographical drama which earned Academy Awards for both Anne Bancroft (Best Actress Oscar on her first nomination) as Annie and Patty Duke (Best Supporting Actress on her only nomination) as Helen; both actresses were reprising their roles from the play, for which Bancroft had received a Tony Award.The film's director Arthur Penn (his first nomination), its screenplay (William Gibson's only recognition from the Academy) adapted from Keller's own book, and B&W Costume Design (also Ruth Morley's only) were also nominated for Oscars. Victor Jory plays Helen's stern father, Inga Swenson the loving mother that had spoiled her 'helpless' daughter to brink of institutionalization, and Andrew Prine plays the brother that sometimes suffered from a lack of attention.

Any movie that's fresh, advanced, forward-looking, in impression or technique, usually pushes further than almost all other mainstream movies sharing the same era or genre, which is to say: too far for some tastes. The innocuousness of most of our movies is received with such stock expectations that when an American movie goes outside that box to pull a real reaction out of us, it tends to pull that same reaction out of the trends in mainstream movies as well. So, as Arthur Penn's work would build open famously shortly hereafter, The Miracle Worker is a film that rages where most biopics tread softly. The showpiece is a one-room, nine-minute battle of wear and tear, as the teacher forces table manners on her untamed ward. It's a shatter-and-batter melee bursting at the seams, played out with thoroughgoing diligence.Likewise remarkable is Penn's sense of familial histrionics on a postwar Southern estate. Despite its complicated genesis through a range of mediums including real life, the story of Helen Keller in film form, an understandably intimidating notion, nevertheless outclasses many true stories and stage adaptations in the domain of visual technique. Penn creates clever, lasting flourishes of cinematic storytelling and atmosphere-sculpting. The calculated, leisurely dissolves, focal changes, filtering and use of light augment the well-known story in depth.There are occasions when two actresses are so in step with each other, they seem like they're but one character and one performance. Such is the situation with The Miracle Worker starring Anne Bancroft as Annie Sullivan a weak-sighted teacher struggling to reach blind and deaf Helen Keller played by the gifted young Patty Duke. They collaborate like few performers can, drawing us into their challenged rapport and keeping us stuck to their triumphs and catastrophes. While Duke's hardly been a solid presence in film or TV over the past thirty years, there was little misgiving of her flair and skill. Bancroft, though, sustained an outstanding career for several decades, and her performance in The Miracle Worker is astonishing for its precise vividness and emotional reverberation. Neither role lacked hefty challenges and both actresses surrendered exceptional career-making and ultimately Oscar-winning performances.Penn was a sharp leader of actors, but his work was always powerfully dynamic and state-of-the-art because of his exemplary equilibrium of attention to visual motifs and filling the atmosphere of a movie with an emotional grab of the our collars. The Miracle Worker was made in 1962, and maybe it's not the byzantine audiovisual takeover of The Manchurian Candidate, but Penn does nevertheless employ some camera, cutting and focal techniques, resulting in the story being told through the truly agitated emotional situation of Annie Sullivan. Her coarse, translucent flashbacks bring us first-hand into Sullivan's visually-impaired world. And I'll never forget those various cross-dissolves panning around and around on a loop. Or how characters will sit in silhouette in their respective moments of doubt and vulnerability.

Adaptation of the play (based on a real story) of Anne Sullivan (Anne Bancroft) trying to teach a young deaf and blind girl named Helen Keller (Patty Duke) how to communicate. Bancroft and Duke played the roles on stage and were (thankfully) allowed to recreate them in the film.This film is a little too pat to me (especially in the rushed happy ending) and it belies it's stage origins every once in a while but it was still worth watching. It pulls no punches in showing how Keller had to be sometimes brutally taught to obey. The fight for authority in the dining room was harrowing to watch. I can't imagine how the actresses did that night after night on stage! The directing is serviceable and the supporting cast is good but this should be seen just for Duke and Bancroft. They both won well-deserved Academy Awards for their performances. When they're on screen you just can't take your eyes off them. So--not a masterpiece but a very good film of a true life story. I give it an 8.

This is an autobiographical movie of Helen Keller (1888-1968).She becomes blind and deaf as a baby, and her life, and the lives of her parents is a battle after that.They hire a woman called Annie Sullivan (1866-1936), who has also been blind, to tutor the child.She does much more than that.The child is difficult , but Annie won't give up, no matter what.The Miracle Worker (1962) is directed by the great Arthur Penn.I borrowed the DVD from the library on his 88th birthday on Monday and liked the movie a lot.The screenplay is based on William Gibson's play from 1959.Anne Bancroft gives a powerful performance as Annie Sullivan.Bancroft was a masterful player of both dramatic and comedic parts, and here she gives a terrific dramatic performance.But there's a little comedy in her acting as well, just look at the good girl-bad girl scene, where she does some funny facial expressions.Patty Duke isn't any worse as Helen Keller.It's just amazing how she plays that very demanding part.There's a lot of physicality in both Anne's and Patty's performances, so it certainly wasn't an easy movie for either one of them.They both won an Oscar they deserved.Victor Jory and Inga Swenson are marvelous as Helen's parents, Captain Arthur Keller and Kate Keller.Andrew Prine is brilliant as James Keller.Kathleen Comegys is wonderful as Aunt Ev.The movie has lots of memorable stuff.All those teaching scenes are ones, where there's a lot of violence with a lot of face slapping and such.But Annie finally gets to her, teaching her letters and the meaning of things.One beautiful moment is when Annie sings Mockingbird to Helen.It's most touching in the end to watch the breakthrough at the water pump.This is a classic that will stay in your mind.