Rating: 
Summary: A genuine miracle
Review: The word miracle has probably been misused and abused in reviews of countless films in the 40 or so years since the story of Helen Keller was first brought to the screen. But the word truly fits the life of the blind and deaf Keller, and the Oscar-winning combo of Anne Bancroft as teacher Annie Sullivan and child actor Patty Duke as the affected Helen is a profoundly moving experience. Summoned to her first teaching assignment, the young Annie herself comes from a state asylum to the daunting task of teaching language to the young Helen. Impressing the power of language, Annie struggles to find a way to impress it on her young pupil. When that miracle finally comes, the scene remains one of the most inspirational ever in cinematic history. As tremendous as Bancroft is, Patty Duke is nothing less than devastating, and it's little wonder that she became (at the time) history's youngest Oscar winner and managed the near impossible feat of a successful transition from child star to respected adult actress. The two-fold message of the film is the power of language and the boundlessness of the human spirit, and they make "The Miracle Worker" a timeless miracle.
Rating: 
Summary: Spectacular, wonderful, wrenching! But worth owning!
Review: The most amazing thing about the film version of "The Miracle Worker" is its absolutely timeless quality. It still holds up beautifully for a film that's almost 40 years old.I've seen "The Miracle Worker" probably a dozen times. And it never gets tiring, boring, or unemotional. In fact, I dare say that after each viewing, I pick up more details and the tears still come neither cheaply yet more freely than they did when I first saw it years ago. The Oscar-winning performances by Anne Bancroft and Patty Duke are shattering, the grainy flashback and dream sequences involving Bancroft's character, Annie Sullivan are wonderfully spooky -- and the fabulously haunting score by Laurence Rosenthal adds a perfect counterbalance to "The Miracle Worker," bringing emotional resonance to an otherwise purposely unsentimental telling of the Helen Keller story. Yet while I say it's unsentimental, the ending is arguably sentimental, which is why the devastating last 10 minutes are so wonderful. The film covers only the short period leading up to Helen Keller's breakthrough to others as a child of intelligence instead of a child who is mentally handicapped. She is "simply" deaf and blind. Director Arthur Penn, who later went onto to lens his classic, "Bonnie and Clyde (1967), did a wonderful thing translating William Gibson's play to the visual language of cinema. There isn't a flaw I can detect with this film, especially his pans, dissolves, double exposures and grainy images with the dream sequences. It's a remarkable portend of things to come for this director, and frankly, I enjoy "The Miracle Worker" a lot more than "Bonnie and Clyde," an acknowledged classic that for me, is more recognized for its counter-establishment storytelling style and the shocking violence depicted at the time. That "Bonnie and Clyde" made the American Film Institute's "greatest 100 films ever made list" and the "Miracle Worker" did not is the greater shock. If you go over the list and see some of the junky films that made it on the basis of "name" instead of quality, you almost retch. . Sharing the New York stage with Patty Duke in 1960, and the producer's insistence that Bancroft be kept as the lead for the film version of "The Miracle Worker" over bankable names like Elizabeth Taylor or Audrey Hepburn is the stuff dreams are made of. Then of course, Bancroft gets her Oscar and does a couple of forgettable things in between (excepting the mean-spirited but worth watching "The Pumpkin Eater"), before landing the role that is as big to film history as Scarlett O'Hara....Mrs. Robinson in "The Graduate!" One scene I must comment on...it's the famous long sequence in the dining room where no more than perhaps five lines of dialogue are uttered by Bancroft. It is relentlessly physical, a dazzling and exhausting battle of wills, so entrancing a show by Bancroft and Duke as they run around the room, spoons thrown, with every object getting trashed. It is violence in a different form, one with an extremely productive purpose that makes it impossible to avert your eyes. It's mesmerizing. In sum, this film is a treasure that pops up on television from time to time, but it's also a film that is worth owning in all of its widescreen glory and to view the trailer offered on the DVD. Do you know why so many people rent movies instead of buying them? It's because so few films are worth watching more than once and some believe it's not worth the extra money to own them. Well, for under [...], "The Miracle Worker" is comparable to what it costs to see a film in a theater these days, and there's no doubt in my mind that this film is worth putting into your library. Perhaps my only regret, as an Oscar buff, is that the film wasn't nominated for Best Picture. I don't mind that "Lawrence of Arabia" won that year (another classic), but to see it get bumped for a Best Pix nomination by the inferior Brando remake of "Mutiny on the Bounty" kind of makes you scratch your head. The passage of time, and hindsight, will do that to 'ya... Just ask people who wonder why Judy Garland lost an Oscar in 1954 for "A Star is Born" to the "dressed down" performance Grace Kelly gives in "The Country Girl." There's no rhyme or reason for such things. You simply have to be satisfied knowing that "The Miracle Worker" is one of the most greatest American films ever made...
Rating:
Summary: Uplifting and inspirational
Review: The classic story of deaf and blind Helen Keller (Patty Duke) and her teacher, Anne Sullivan (Anne Bancroft). Pitied for her handicaps and thought to be retarded, Helen has been indulged and left in ignorance, resulting in a spoiled child without any concept of language. Anne, herself raised in a home for blind and deaf children, must be a ruthless taskmaster in order to use the child's physical needs as a primer from which to teach her what language is so that communication might follow. Bancroft and Duke carry this film on their shoulders and they do a magnificent job. They share many intense, physically exhausting scenes together. The sequence in which Anne grapples with Helen over dinner in order to teach her to follow basic rules of etiquette is a good example-it is unsentimental and the actresses are totally committed to their performances. Director Arthur Penn and screenwriter William Gibson (who adapted his own stage play) have done remarkable jobs as well to produce an uplifting, inspirational film that eschews saccharine and phoniness.
Rating:
Summary: May not be appropriate for young children
Review: I am a (...) teacher and my class just finished reading the Helen Keller story. They were so intrigued by the story that I wanted to show them the video, so they could really feel the story. As a child I remember watching this version of The Miracle Worker and I knew I could get it at our local video store. I prepared my class that this movie was not in color but in black and white. Unfortunately, I did not re-watch this version. The "scarey" sounding music was too intense for my class. It was difficult to really listen to the words. I felt I had to narrate the movie. After about 10 minutes, I could sense that my class was somewhat uncomfortable watching this version. They still would like to see the video and I promised them another version. I think for a school setting the Disney version is a better choice.
Rating:
Summary: What can I say?
Review: This is my all time favorite movie. I have always believed that simplicity was the key to success, and this movie proves my point. From the delicate hauting music to the stark, spacious, black and white photography to the sharp and tight script, this movie is a joy. Anne Bancroft and Patty Duke give performances so real and emotional that you could easily forget that they are actors. Arthur Penn's dierection is just breathtaking. The two-minuit, wordless, "napkin scene" is one the the most compelling battle of wills ever captured on film. This classic also boasts one of the most moving endings I have ever seen. Helen says her first word "Wa-wa" and it is clear that she will be able to cummunicate. The triumph of the human spirit in the face of desperation is the miracle, and it will leave you breathless. I can't recommend this movie enough; all I can say is "watch it."
Rating:
Summary: Deaf viewers need not watch this DVD!
Review: Astonishing, isn't it, that this greatest of all films about the most famous deaf-blind person in history cannot be viewed by a deaf person! There are NO English subtitles. There is NO English closed-captioning for the "hearing impaired." I cannot put into words my anger/disappointment in MGM for releasing this DVD without English subtitles. What were they thinking?! Still...I can't watch this film without weeping during the final minutes--from Helen's "water" epiphany to the overwhelmingly poignant ending. Shame on MGM for technically spoiling this DVD. Perhaps they can be shamed into a re-release with English subtitles?
Rating:
Summary: A true gem
Review: Artur Penn directed this film and probably his best work. This film is one landmark in American cinema.
The approach of Penn is supported by a haunting story about a deaf mude girl and the hard process of learning with a teacher who has strong visual limitations,Helen Keller.
Undoubtly, Truffaut with The wild child 1969 , makes a very close approach than Penn, but in this case, The miracle worker has a cast very difficult to find today even impossible. The couple Anne Bancroft one of my twenty favorite american actress in any age, and Patty Duke as the child made a superb performing.
Previously they had performed this play in the theatre. Watch by example the high raising dramatic sequences are filmed as is the viewer was in a theatre hall, the camera is just in the floor. And this is another tribute to Citizen Kane.
The mude sequence ten minutes where they turn around the table where Patty must to eat in the right way is unforgettable. The camera's handle and the angles of shooting are a milestone in the legend cinema.
The film doesn't get old and it's a special gift for every one to have this DVD. The transfer was very well made.
One of the supreme movies ever.
Don't miss this one.
A truly classic film.
Rating:
Summary: Fantastic Movie!
Review: I saw The Miracle Worker on TCM and it is a fantastic movie. It is based on the stage play which is based on the true story of Helen Keller who was left deaf, blind and mute since an illness she contacted when she a baby and thought of by doctors as being retarded and that nothing could be done to help her so with really no way of communicating with anyone she was a very frustrated young girl and was kind of let by her parents to run wild and doctors and even some family members thought she should be sent away to an asylum but all that changes when Annie Sullivan comes to help Helen and teach her how to communicate and survive so she is not sent away. Anne Bancroft and Patty Duke were both wonderful as Annie Sullivan and Helen Keller and I highly recommend this movie and I just may someday buy the widescreen DVD. Sometime in the late 1970s Patty Duke starred in a television remake in which she played Annie Sullivan and Melissa Gilbert played Helen Keller and though the original is best the remake was also good. FYI: Fans of the 1980s sitcom Benson might be interested to know that Inga Swenson who played Helen's mother in this original Miracle worker Movie played Mrs. Kraus the housekeeper in Benson.
Rating:
Summary: Beautiful Performances
Review: Beautiful performances by Anne Bancroft and Patty Duke in a film about overcoming devastating childhood disabilities. The musical score is also very moving. Just a comment about the well-known dining room scene which took several days to shoot. It is very powerful, but if you are attentive to detail, there are some inconsistencies in continuity. But this is the fault of the director and editor, not the actress.
There are many wonderful moments in this film. The last 10 minutes of the movie are deeply touching. It gets to me every time.
Rating:
Summary: My favourite film ever
Review: Inspirational. Truly inspirational. An inspiring true story, an aesthetically professional work of direction, and a performance by Anne Bancroft that was "meant to be". For those who can appreciate true greatness, this is a film that will stay with you forever as a constant affirmation of both the true potential of film and of the human spirit.
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