The Miracle Worker

I was sort of letting out a little sigh as this one was starting, like do I really want to commit to this? But it sucked me in. While I had started it many times in the past, I think this was the first time I had ever watched it all the way through. I had seen the climactic scene with the water pump before and was very familiar with the first 30 minutes, but there were large chunks in the middle I'm pretty sure I'd never seen before. Anne Bancroft's monologue about her childhood in the asylum was powerful stuff. She relates it not to evoke pity but to let us know it made her strong. The superimposition of flashbacks from Bancroft's childhood I found hokey, but the rest of the movie is powerful. Patty Duke was about 15 or 16 when she made this movie, though they manage to bundle her up and make her look like she's about 11. I guess we're supposed to believe she still remembers saying "wa-wa" when she was six months old when she tries to verbalize the word near the end of the movie. That seemed a bit of a stretch. Did Keller go on to being able to talk? I would like a movie to be made about her adult life. Arthur Penn seemed poised at one time to be as well-known a director of his era as anyone, but looking at his imdb resume, boy his career really petered out after about Little Big Man. What happened? The long, dialogue-free kitchen table fight scene, wow! Hope the actresses didn't hurt each other too much. And I spent the whole film knowing I knew Victor Jory from somewhere, but it wasn't until it was over and I went to my laptop that I remembered he was Wilkerson, the plantation overseer turned tax collector in Gone with the Wind. And he really didn't look very much different 23 years later!