The Miracle Worker (1962) on Netflix
Approved19621h 46mBiographyDrama
Blind and deaf since infancy, Helen Keller cannot speak, and no one in her Alabama home can control her. Annie Sullivan arrives from the Perkins Institute to reach her through touch.
- Netflix3.8/5
- IMDb8.1/1021,369 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes96%
Trailer
Plot summary
Helen Keller lost her sight and hearing to an illness as a baby, and by 1887 the seven-year-old cannot speak at all. After she tips her baby sister out of her cradle, Mrs. Keller cannot bear the thought of an asylum, and Captain Keller agrees to find a teacher. Annie Sullivan, twenty years old and only partly sighted, comes from the Perkins Institute in Boston, brings Helen a doll, and spells its name into her palm with the finger alphabet; Helen copies the letters back. The family's habit of giving in to Helen defeats every lesson, so Annie asks for two weeks alone with the girl in an unused cottage on the grounds.
Cast
- Grant Codeas Doctor
- Michele Farras Annie at Age 10
- Jack Hollanderas Mr. Anagnos of Perkins School in Boston
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The Miracle Worker (1962)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- United Artists executives wanted Elizabeth Taylor to play Anne Sullivan in the film, but director Arthur Penn, who had also directed the Broadway production, insisted on Anne Bancroft. The studio then treated the film as a risk and gave Penn only a $1,300,000 budget, $200,000 of which bought the rights to the play.
- Patty Duke, who had played Helen Keller on Broadway, nearly lost the film part because at 15 she was considered too old to play a seven-year-old girl. She was chosen only after Anne Bancroft was cast as Anne Sullivan.
- For the nine-minute dining room battle between Anne Bancroft and Patty Duke, both wore padding under their costumes to avoid serious bruising. The sequence needed three cameras and took five days to film.
- The film won two Academy Awards, Best Actress for Anne Bancroft and Best Supporting Actress for Patty Duke, who at 16 became the youngest competitive Oscar winner at the time.
