How to criticise such a well-intentioned film on such a worthy subject? Anne Frank has come down the ages as a universal symbol of youthful innocence in the face of inhuman oppression and must therefore in any cinematic telling of her tale be accorded proper respect, all the more so when unlike other near-historic "sacred cows", for example Winston Churchill or Gandhi, she was destroyed even before she came to adulthood. Not only that but the film-maker has another major problem in holding the viewer's interest with a narrative which by dint of its content must include periods of inaction and in a greatly confined space at that. Therefore in judging the film on purely cinematic terms, I have to say I found the movie overlong and also guilty of some uneven acting, although the latter point is excused somewhat by the youth of the perpetrators, of which more later. George Stevens's later work tends to long-playing at the best of times ("Giant" anyone?) and here again, perhaps as I said out of over-respect for its source material, the film runs to a draining 170 minutes, a good hour too long I would say. Of course with all that time at his disposal, the director delivers lots of characterisation but there's little he can do to inject genuine action and tension and as we know in advance that the moment of discovery has to come at the film's finish, attempts to heighten tension at other points are weakened accordingly, also by their being drawn out inordinately over several overlong minutes. I also have a major problem with said moment of discovery coinciding with Anne and Peter's kiss, for me a distasteful Hollyood bowdlerisation of events as of course no such event ever occurs in the diary itself. Which leads me to the acting... The "seniors" are all very good and believable, particularly Joseph Schildkraut playing Otto Frank and Shelley Winters in one of her first older character parts, but the "juniors" are inconsistent, not even trying to adopt a Dutch accent and therefore jarring on the soundtrack. Again I hesitate to be over-critical of Millie Perkins in the title role but I did find her too, certainly old and also dare I say it, almost cute and subsequently unconvincing in her attempt at realism, despite the care and camera-friendly treatment the director gives her. It's no great surprise to me that adult stardom seems to have evaded her. It would be easy to sign off and just point everyone at the book itself but clearly this is a great story which will live forever and no doubt be re-told again and again on TV and on the big screen, as it deserves to. This first portrayal seems to me too much a child of its era, the black and white, stolid, 1950's and with a director too much in thrall to his subject. That said everyone should watch the film, especially if they haven't read the book, but your time will pass slowly and I don't think you'll be moved as much as you should be at the conclusion.
Review of The Diary of Anne Frank
