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The Miracle Worker movie storyline. The true story of Helen Keller and Annie Sullivan, a gripping battle to overcome impossible obstacles and the struggle to communicate. As a young girl, Helen Keller is stricken with scarlet fever.
The illness leaves her blind, mute, and deaf. Sealed off from the world, Helen cannot communicate with anyone, nor anyone with her. Often frustrated and desperate, Helen flies into uncontrollable rages and tantrums that terrify her hopeless family. The gifted teacher Annie Sullivan is summoned by the family to help the girl understand the world from which she is isolated, freeing Helen Keller from her internal prison forever.
The Miracle Worker is a 1962 American biographical film about Anne Sullivan, blind tutor to Helen Keller, directed by Arthur Penn. The screenplay by William Gibson is based on his 1959 play of the same title, which originated as a 1957 broadcast of the television anthology series Playhouse 90. Gibson’s secondary source material was The Story of My Life, the 1903 autobiography of Helen Keller.
The film went on to be an instant critical success and a moderate commercial success. The film was nominated for five Academy Awards, including Best Director for Arthur Penn, and won two awards, Best Actress for Anne Bancroft and Best Supporting Actress for Patty Duke. The Miracle Worker also holds a perfect 100% score from the movie critics site Rotten Tomatoes.
Despite the fact Anne Bancroft had won the Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Play for her performance in the Broadway production, United Artists executives wanted a bigger name cast as Anne Sullivan in the film adaptation. They offered to budget the film at $5 million if Elizabeth Taylor was cast but only $500,000 if director Arthur Penn insisted on using Bancroft. Penn, who had directed the stage production, remained loyal to his star. The move paid off, and Bancroft won an Oscar for her role in the film.
Also despite the fact that Patty Duke had played Helen Keller in the play, she almost did not get the part. The reason was that Duke, 15 years old at the time, was too old to portray a seven-year-old girl, but after Bancroft was cast as Anne, Duke was chosen to play Helen in the movie.
For the dining room battle scene, in which Anne tries to teach Helen proper table manners, both Bancroft and Duke wore padding beneath their costumes to prevent serious bruising during the intense physical skirmish. The nine-minute sequence required three cameras and took five days to film.
The film was shot at Big Sky Ranch in Simi Valley, California and Middletown, New Jersey. It was remade twice for television, in 1979 with Patty Duke as Anne and Melissa Gilbert as Helen and in 2000 with Alison Elliott and Hallie Kate Eisenberg in the lead roles. The film ranked #15 on AFI’s 100 Years… 100 Cheers: America’s Most Inspiring Movies.
The Miracle Worker (1962)
Directed by: Arthur Penn
Starring: Anne Bancroft, Patty Duke, Victor Jory, Inga Swenson, Andrew Prine, Kathleen Comegys, Michele Farr, Jack Hollander, Helen Ludlam, Beah Richards, Judith Lowry, Madge West
Screenplay by: William Gibson
Cinematography by: Ernesto Caparrós
Film Editing by: Aram Avakian
Costume Design by: Ruth Morley
Art Direction by: George Jenkins
Music by: Laurence Rosenthal
MPAA Rating: None.
Distributed by: United Artists
Release Date: July 28, 1962
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