Mandy

Mandy was born deaf and spends most of her childhood without speaking. Her family has kept her at home; they have shown her to nobody and let her meet nobody. When she reaches school age her mother Christine hears there is a residential school that teaches deaf children to speak. She wants to send her daughter there. The father is against it; to his mind the child should stay at home. The future of the marriage depends on this fight as much as Mandy's does. The source is Hilda Lewis's novel. Alexander Mackendrick directed and made something completely apart from the Ealing studio's usual comedies. The school scenes were shot at a real school for deaf children in Manchester with its own pupils, and that is the film's strongest quality; the children's effort to make a sound for the first time is not acting. Mandy Miller, who plays Mandy, was a small child at the time and carries the part. Ninety-three minutes.