Crash of Silence

I'm really a movie fan. Watch as much movies as I can. Though I'm never really interested in movies from the 50's. But this movie turned that all around. "Mandy" is a great movie that is a must see! Mandy Miller has a stunning role and plays it really great! The whole story line in this movie is unique, still to this day. It's a movie like I've not seen before. Especially because the movie is from way back, it's great to see that there were already great minds behind this movie. And I can't say it enough, the role that Mandy Miller plays is stunning!

If you have the opportunity to watch this movie, watch it! I give it a big 10 out of 10.

The modernity, imagination and psychology present in this film surprised me. For those unfamiliar with 1940s and 1950s British cinema, much of it is quite conventional and most characters follow archetypes. At the time, British cinema lagged behind French cinema.

This film also has archetypal characters to a degree, but focuses on children and disability in a unique way. It has strong women and incredible directing of actors. So much of the film hinges on displaying realisations and moral questioning, wordless reactions. It hinges on people changing and evolving. The film has a real sense of humanity and vulnerability.

It has a delicate visual flair, a use of space and lighting. Two round lights bouncing off a pair of glasses. A child running through a large, wide empty hallway filmed with a short focal length. A wisp of smoke trailing over a face through a dissolve.

Phyllis Calvert deserved more recognition for her acting and didn't have the career she deserved. Mandy Miller's subtle, vulnerable performance for a child actress is a rare feat. Jack Hawkins is stunning as ever. It pains me that Alexander Mackendrick's directing didn't flourish. Mandy and The Lady Killers showed he could have been an interesting voice in modernist, New Wave cinema in the 60s. Unfortunately, his career was in turmoil by the late 50s. At the very least, we can cherish what he made at the summit of his craft.

When they realise that their daughter "Mandy" (Mandy Miller) isn't so responsive to sound, they take her to a physician who tells them that she is profoundly deaf, and will most likely never be able to learn to speak either. Parents "Christine" (Phyllis Calvert) and "Harry" (Terence Morgan) are determined to keep her with their family, so move into his parents large home in a still largely bombed out area of London. Her early years pose less of a problem for her caring family, but as she gets older and begins to become frustrated with her inability to react to the outside world and her playful contemporaries, they decide that perhaps some form of more formal education is required. They've heard good things of the slightly maverick "Searle" (Jack Hawkins) who is trying to use sonics to introduce the concepts of sounds to other children, and so they take her there. Never having been away from her parents though, she struggles to adapt - and that puts quite a strain on a marriage that is divided as to how best to proceed. This is one of those films that tugs at the heart strings. It's not sentimental, nor is it melodramatic - it just illustrates how an ordinary family struggles to deal with the stress of having a child who has to live her life differently amidst a society that is unaware of her disability. Sometimes that puts her at greater risk, or requires a greater patience from those around her. That very relentlessness is captured well here by both Calvert and Morgan, and there's also a sub-plot between Hawkins and his trustees (Edward Chapman) that demonstrates a clinical reluctance to challenge existing thinking and experiment with new methods. There is also a look taken at just how difficult is is for adults to maintain relationships when constantly frazzled, and at just how toxic gossiping tongues can be when nerves are frayed. Hats also have to come off to the young Miller, who delivers personably here and who elicits sympathy, yes, but also a degree of appreciation of her character's own courage as she strives to conform without having the faintest idea what it is that she is "missing". Thoughtful and at times provocative and it still has relevance seventy years later.

I have not seen this movie since I was a child, I am now 40 years old, but it still comes back to me. I loved this movie. I may have seen it twice as I remember it so well. I think it impressed upon me the ability children have to shine through adversity, and the need to believe that they really can make it, if given the right encouragement, in the right way, at the time that is right for them! I think it was a well acted and well thought out story line, with a heart rending performance by Mandy Miller. I would dearly love to see this movie again!

Remarkably this is only the eleventh review ever posted on the IMDb of this pioneering work on the subject of child psychology, representing both the apex of the Ealing drama and the directorial career of Alexander MacKendrick; which also continues writer Nigel Balchin's exploration of the role of the outsider aided by pellucid photography by Douglas Slocombe.

Once seen Mandy Miller (who you actually got to hear speak in 'The Man in the White Suit') is never forgotten; although the real tensions plainly reside in the tensions between the adults, which is probably in line with Ealing's equivocal view of the role of officialdom in general.