Thursday's Children (1954)
21m
Running Time
May 1, 1954Release Date
Thursday's Children (1954)
21m
Running Time
May 1, 1954Release Date
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Plot.
Won the Academy Award for the Best Documentary Short of 1954. The subject deals with the children at The Royal School for the Deaf in Margate, Kent. The hearing-handicapped children are shown painstakingly learning what words are through exercises and games, practicing lip-reading and finally speech. Richard Burton's calm and sometimes-poetic narration adds to the heartwarming cheerfulness and courage of the children.
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Details.
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Wiki.
Thursday's Children is a 1954 British short documentary film directed by Guy Brenton and Lindsay Anderson about The Royal School for the Deaf in Margate, Kent, UK, a residential school then teaching lip reading rather than sign language. Apart from music and narration, the film is nearly silent and focuses on the faces and gestures of the little boys and girls. It features methods and goals not now used, and notes that only one child in three will achieve true speech. Filmmakers Lindsay Anderson and Guy Brenton were unable to gain distribution for the film until it won an Oscar in 1955 for Documentary Short Subject. The Academy Film Archive preserved Thursday's Children in 2005.