Helen Keller In Her Own Story

An Oscar-winner for Best Feature Documentary in 1955, this dated, but nevertheless absorbing, look at the life of Helen Keller, made 13 years before her death in 1968, introduces viewers to one of the quintessential success stories of our time. Blind, deaf, and mute from the age of 19 months, Helen Keller would become a published author by the age of 12. She would graduate from Radcliffe, cum laude, learn to read in five different languages, and even make Calvin Coolidge smile. Helen Keller in Her Own Story chronicles the story of the "breakthrough" between Keller and her teacher Annie Sullivan (a scene that Keller would repeat over and over on the vaudeville stage), and observes a "day in the life" of Helen Keller and her companion of several decades Polly Thompson as they read and respond to the voluminous daily mail, cook dinner and wash dishes, and entertain visitors in their Vermont home. In newsreel footage we also see the tireless Keller traveling to address blind and deaf children in Australia, Israel, South Africa, and Japan. Throughout, one is struck by the absolute refusal of Keller to accept limitations and her constant thirst for new knowledge and experience. This is captured very nicely in a poignant scene in which Keller visits Martha Graham's dance studio and stands in a circle touching the dancers who move around her--in this way she discovers the latest in modern dance. Although an "older" documentary, Helen Keller in Her Own Story is still a very powerful viewing experience. Highly recommended. (Available from: Hen's Tooth Video, 1124 S. Solano Dr., Suite E, Las Cruces, NM 88001; (505) 525-8233.)