Rent Mandy (1952)

A very useful film - Mandy review by CSF

I am very impressed by the acting of the little girl. I wish one of my friends who was deaf and dumb could have found the same school. The film handles this handicap gracefully, showing all the clumsiness of ignorant people around her. It should be shown in every school, even today. Because of our ignorance, today we handle autistic children roughly. The cinema is a great and unique way to show some handicaps without teaching or judging.

This film also emphasizes that it is not a good idea to separate the children from their parents during their education.

British neo-realism. - Mandy review by Steve

Powerful, emotional drama which miraculously- given its subject- manages to evade sentimentality because of its procedural style and understated performances. A child (Mandy Miller) is deaf and mute and born into a life of limited possibilities to an ineffectual, if rather well off father (Terence Morgan).

When she is eight, her mother (Phyllis Calvert) takes the girl to a special school run by an irascible, frighteningly motivated headmaster (Jack Hawkins). Mandy is so irresistible that the film builds a potent dread of anything which might stand in her way. Like the father, or the hostile administrator (Edward Chapman) who resents the teacher's methods.

The moment when Mandy learns to say 'b' is overwhelming. Hawkins plays a proper cinematic hero, who who fights using his intellect for complex, humanistic ideals. It's an inspiring portrayal. The film implicitly becomes a polemic which quietly promotes the public provision of special schools.

Alexander Mackendrick deserves credit for making it all matter so much, and presumably for piecing together a convincing performance from of the child lead. It's a neo-realist classic, shot in a working school for the deaf, in the bomb sites of Manchester. And was made with love, craft and conviction.