Mandy is directed by Alexander MacKendrick. The film stars Jack Hawkins, Mandy Miller, Phyllis Calvert and Terence Morgan.I enjoyed this one very much. I'm extremely impressed by the performance of Mandy Miller as Mandy, she has the difficult task of conveying what her character is going through by facial expressions only; and she does such a fine job and is utterly convincing and natural in the role. I'm going to try and check out more of her work. She is so good in this film, perfectly conveying how introverted and shy Mandy has become.Mandy(Mandy Miller)is born deaf, her parents Christine and Harry(Phyllis Calvert and Terence Morgan)raise her at home. Because she can't speak, she can't communicate with her family or anyone else and as she gets older she becomes hard to control.Eventually she is taken to a residential deaf school, which is run by Jack Hawkins progressive teacher, Searle. Here, Mandy can at last make friends and learn how to communicate in a hearing world. The growing friendship between Christine and Searle, that so easily could have developed into a romance is touching and well conveyed by Hawkins and Calvert.I really hope that people who saw this back at the time of release came to understand that deaf people(and anyone else with a disability)are just as normal as anyone else. I hope this film helped educate people about those who are deaf.I loved the part where Mandy's mum discovers the teacher she has been talking to perfectly normally is actually completely deaf, but can lip read and use her voice normally; that scene perfectly shows that deaf people can exist just as normally as those of us who can hear.

This is the sort of film the British do so perfectly - little films with actors (not superstars) who can fit into their roles as though born to them and stories with pathos and feeling but no sticky sentimentality. "Mandy" was another movie memory from my childhood, one that I always thought would be a memory but fortunately I had the opportunity to view it again recently. I can remember the emotion I felt at the scene when Mandy, by feeling the vibration she makes on a balloon produces the b,b,b, sound just as the teachers despaired that she would ever be able to advance. Mandy Miller was a marvellous little actress whose father had been an electrician at the Ealing Studios and she was discovered when she and her sister toured the studio. She found fame much like Hayley Mills did in the 1960s but was never allowed to feel (by her family) that she was anymore special or gifted than any other child. I suppose "Mandy" proved a film she could never get away from because she retired as a teenager to an early but happy and long lasting marriage. I will always be grateful she made "Mandy".This film has an almost documentary feel to it as it explores the problems and emotions of the Garland family who come to the realization that their baby girl, Mandy, is deaf and dumb. They eventually go to live with Harry's (Terence Morgan) parents who treat Mandy with gentleness and understanding but not like a real child. Christine (the wonderful Phyllis Calvert - is there no part she couldn't play) wants a better future for Mandy and over Harry's head enrols her at a special school run by the radical Dick Searle (Jack Hawkins).The ground breaking methods the school uses seems to produce miracles but Mandy finds it hard to cope. At six she is thought a bit old as a beginner and she has been too sheltered, while her once loving parents are beginning to bicker. An incident at a local park reduces Mandy to "wild animal behaviour" that determines Christine to move nearer the school and enrol her as a day pupil. This film is so full of heart inspiring moments - when Mandy finally finds her voice, in another fit of screams, but the teacher can harness the sounds and Mandy can now begin to learn. There is a subplot going through it that has Christine and Searle thrown together and finding (on Searle's part) that he has deeper feelings for Christine. All blown out of proportion by a nasty superintendent, Mr. Ackland (Edward Chapman who played the creepy lodger to perfection in "The October Man") who wants Searle out of the job and feels a trumped up scandal is the best way to do it. The ending is guaranteed to make a strong person weep as Harry's father realises that the school has made a huge difference to Mandy, and as he says to his wife "you have been interfering all along, now it's my turn"!!Jack Hawkins listed "Mandy" as one of his favourite films and felt it was the turning point in his career, not only helping him define his own philosophy on life but boosting him from success to stardom. When he found himself later in life dealing with his own crippling disability (throat cancer) he drew strength from remembering his role in "Mandy".

This film has a resonance for me as I too was 6 years old in 1952 being born in 1946 the same age as Mandy Miller was when she performed her signature film of a little deaf girl.I vaguely remember my parents talking about this film then but now at 63 this was the first time I had seen it.I have to admit my eyes were damp the whole way through as I too can remember the many bomb sites then around London, the old taxis & cars, the ladies fashions, what my primary school was like in my second year and playtime with fellow infants.It is not often I award 9/10 for a film but this was one such occasion.The whole cast, director, producer. scriptwriter and production crew performed admirably and of course Mandy Miller's central role was wholly believable.The film did not lapse into mawkish sentimentality once but kept a realistic grip throughout so that one sensed it was almost a documentary but kept the dramatic emphasis together."The heavy" Mr Akland, was played by Edward Chapman a role he played in "Gone to Earth" (1949) as a hypocritical church deacon. In Mandy he tries to stir up trouble by suggesting and trying to prove the mother Christine (Phyllis Calvert) and Searle (Jack Hawkins) are having an affair, for jealous professional reasons.To show Edward could also play comedic roles he is more famous in the UK for playing the hapless foil Mr Grimsdale to Norman Wisdom in the latter's 1950s comic films.Similarly the actress Marjory Fielding who plays Mrs Garland the mother of Mandy's father Harry (Terence Morgan), belayed her very stagey style of acting seen in "Quiet Wedding" (1941) and acted in a low key modern idiom (for 1952).Godfrey Tearle as her husband Mr Garland had obviously aged 17 years since 1935 when he had played the traitor in Hitchcock's "The 39 Steps" with Robert Donat & Madeline Carroll (still the best version of this film).As a chess player who also played by correspondence in the 1960s, I was naturally intrigued by the arrival of one of his opponents moves which was PXP en passant.Mandy recognised the "P" sound from the chess scorecard after her extensive deaf help given gratis by Mr Searle (an excellent role for Jack Hawkins) the principal of the deaf school in Manchester.This was the abiding proof Mr Garland needed to take the initiative between his son Harry & Searle to show the beneficial effect on Mandy's speech patterns from the specialised help given to her.I would also like to place on record the wonderful real deaf children who were selected by the producers to participate in the film who made the experience so convincing.The producers gave this deaf school a vote of thanks in the opening credits.

The Mandy of the title truly is the star of the film, as almost all of the adults underplay their scenes with her to help her shine brighter. When Mandy's parents find out she is deaf, they have differing ideas on what to do next. Mother, Christine, wants to send Mandy to a special school for deaf children so she can learn to read and write - and perhaps speak - and be as much like other children as possible. But her father, Harry, is somewhat ashamed of his daughter and would rather keep Mandy hidden away at his parents' house with only a governess to teach her the finger alphabet. After seeing how she reacts with other children, Christine realises that for Mandy's sake she must get her to the school, and leaves Harry. Watching Mandy's progress in the school provides some fascinating insight into ways of teaching and, contrary to Harry's thoughts, she does progress, with help from headmaster Searle. A second storyline is developed here as people increasingly believe that Christine is having an affair with Searle, when in fact they are both only interested in the good of the child.A real "four tissue" movie, 10/10.