Product Description

Helen Keller is one of the most renowned personages of the 20th century, and yet most people only know her as that young girl, deaf and blind from infancy, who astounded the world by learning not only how to read and write but also to speak.

Few people, however, know very much else about Helen Keller.

The 1955 Academy Award® winning documentary, Unconquered, Helen Keller in Her Story, narrated by Katharine Cornell and directed by Nancy Hamilton, presents the adult Helen Keller, the internationally recognized and respected spokesperson and advocate for the disabled, and this movie also reveals Helen Keller as a whole person, one who partakes in the ordinary joys of life - entertaining guests, going shopping, enjoying flowers, and doing mundane chores - despite her afflictions.

In addition to enhanced new materials, this DVD, as with all Nobility Studios titles, uses the original film in order to provide the highest possible image quality.

The Nobility Studios original production, VISIONS in Silent Darkness, uses new research and goes further to show Helen Keller as not just acclaimed and capable but, rather, as an exceptional intelligence and a brilliant thinker in her own right - an exemplar for all people and all times.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #45213 in DVD
• Released on: 2009-04-16
• Format: NTSC
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 73 minutes

Amazon.com
It is easy to see why this gentle documentary, as elegant as its subject, won an Academy Award in 1955. Narrated by actress Katharine Cornell and filmed in black and white, it spends the first 24 minutes introducing viewers, through newsreels, interviews, and old photographs, to the story of the deaf and blind disabled-rights pioneer. News footage shows her international appearances and visits with heads of state, including President Eisenhower allowing her to feel his face. The second half takes a day-in-the-(exceptional)-life approach to Keller's existence circa 1955. Made just 13 years before her death, Keller's famed tutor-translator-friend Anne Sullivan had already died, leaving her live-in replacement, Polly Thomson, to share the film's focus. From the time Keller takes her morning walk along the 1,000-foot handrail around her yard through her workday to her nightly reading of her Braille Bible, her serene acceptance of her life will amaze and inspire. --Kimberly Heinrichs

Customer Reviews

Plenty of rare footage
Excellent video for all the reasons listed in Amazon's official review and-- contains the only known recording of Anne Sullivan's voice!

Helen Kellers' words set to video with real footage and photographs
"Helen Keller In Her Story" is a documentary which was produced and directed by Nancy Hamilton and was originally released in 1955. It is in black and white and was distributed by Hearst in 1992 in VHS format.

This documentary takes the story of Helen Keller as written in her autobiography, and is narrated by actress Katherine Cornell. It won an Academy Award for Best Feature Documentary in 1955.

The narration is done over original footage of Helen Keller and some older material are still shots of photographs. While hearing about the life of Helen Keller it is fascinating to see her in motion in the video images.

We see Helen Keller traveling all over the world. We see how she can communicate using sign language. We see Keller reading Braille including reading her Braille Bible which she says she reads each morning and each evening. We see her typing using a regular typewriter as well as a Braille typewriter. Later we see her trying a device which people type words into and it converts them to Braille immediately.

Footage includes her original teacher and companion Anne Sullivan. We hear Helen Keller's voice and we learn that the thing that bothered her most was she wished she had a better speaking voice. Later footage includes her second companion and assistant Polly Thompson.

There is a segment which tries to show a day in the life of Helen Keller. This includes footage of Polly and Helen at Keller's estate named Arcan Ridge in Easton, Connecticut. We see everything from beginning the day with breakfast to her opening mail and corresponding with people to reading and learning to doing household tasks. We see exterior and interior shots of the home including seeing Keller take a walk outdoors by herself by following along a trail with a handrail.

(Note: Arcan Ridge is in the town of Easton Connecticut not in the town Westport as some sources mistakenly state. Helen Keller got her mail at a post office box in Westport and so there is confusion about where Arcan Ridge was. When we see letters addressed to Keller at Arcan Ridge in Westport that is just a mailing address. Also on the documentary's cover it states the footage shows her on her Vermont estate which is also not accurate. Arcan Ridge is where Helen Keller lived from 1936 until her death in 1968.)

This is a bit slow paced and formal compared to the new documentaries being produced today, this is an excellent documentary. If you are looking for more of a dramatic telling of portions of her life, perhaps the movie The Miracle Worker would be of more interest to you. If you are looking to view original video footage and photographs and to see Helen Keller in motion and even talking, this is an excellent documentary to watch.