ok, i love Anne Bancroft, but isnt this one of the most overacted films in history.
anne bancroft and patty duke's performances were so overdone!
and they won oscars?!
It's not overacting. It's great acting. That goes for Victor Jory and Inga Swenson as well.
It was adapted from a stage play, my dear friend.
shareAs the previous posters have said, it is not overacting. Because it is adapted from the stage play, the techniques of acting are kept in tact. This includes the emoting and dialouge. Anne Bancroft provides the performance of a lifetime and why I think she is one of the greatest actresses of the 20th century and I feel that she was a bit underrated at times. Patty Duke also shows us that she is one of the best child actresses of all time. Stellar movie and I enjoy watching it every few years that appears on TV.
share^^I agree and well said. I am tired of all the "overacting" posts on IMDB. Maybe if the new standard is subtley, all actors should take a Xanax before shootiing so everyone acts like Jessica Lange. Great acting is theatrical in nature and I never thought anyone went over the top in this film. The scenes between Duke and Bancroft were very challenging.
share
It is over-acting in the sense that it is very theatrical in nature.... but even so, it is over-acting at its very best!
I say - Bette Davis should have won but Anne Bancroft was still quite good; and Patty Duke's Oscar is well deserved and IMO one of the Best Supporting Actresses of all time.
"the best that you can do is fall in love"
It being a stage play is irrelevant; the acting would had been the same regardless.
How would people in this situaton handle themself,in whispered tones and tidy manners?. The situation is nothing to be understated about, or it wouldn't be realistic.
Overstatement does not =overacting
The 2 of them were incredibly brilliant. Overacting doesn't even fit when it comes to what Anne Bancroft and Patty Duke did.
shareIt's been a while since I've seen this movie, but I thought Anne Bancroft was very good and Patty Duke was phenomenal. There is not a trace of self-consciousness in her portrayal of Helen Keller. Her intensity and her passion and her inability to not be "true" blew me away. Yhe last scene by the well, especially, she is a wild flower.
Patty Duke was so good, it reminds me of the notion that creativity and mental illness sometimes go hand in hand.
[deleted]
How about the performance of Andrew Prine?. He was playing it as if it was a screwball comedy.
shareOveracting? You gotta be kidding! It was very well-acted----nothing overdone whatsoever, but that's my opinion. It is sure head over heels better than just about anything on the big screen today....
share