Le Scandale Costello

Shot in the United Kingdom and the continent, The Story Of Esther Costello seems to be a hybrid production of The Miracle Worker and Johnny Belinda. Heather Sears's performance in the title role might have been worthy of Oscar consideration had not Jane Wyman already won an award playing a deaf mute.

Joan Crawford plays a wealthy American who is separated from her husband Rossano Brazzi and touring Ireland, specifically the village of her birth. While there the village priest Denis O'Dea introduces Joan to Sears who is deaf, blind, and mute. In a prologue we see why she is that way, as a child she found a cache of gunpowder and grenades left over from the Rebellion which explodes killing her mother and leaving her as she is.

Eventually Joan takes Heather from the squalid conditions she's living in courtesy of her aunt Maureen Delaney and gives her the Helen Keller treatment. When Sears becomes a celebrity of sorts, Brazzi reenters the picture see the cash cow Sears has become what with the charities organized in her name.

A rather unbelievable 'cure' for Sears mars what could have been a much better drama. The players all perform well, particularly Crawford who is in her best Mildred Pierce mode as an adoptive mother to a much more appreciative child than Ann Blyth.

Definitely one for Joan Crawford fans.

The story is by renowned novelist Nicholas Monsarrat, also known for "The Cruel Sea" and "The Capillan of Malta", two other realistic and documentary novels, but this is not about the war. It's about a deaf and mute poor orphan in Ireland, who is taken care of by Joan Crawford, who makes an unusually impressive performance, without falling into pits of sentimentality and bathos. Heather Sears as the young girl is the chief star of the film, though, unknown and making the performance of her life for a start. The real crushing thing is the story, though. It is devastating in its merciless exposure of commercial exploitation of humanitarianism. The real drama begins as Rossano Brazzi enters the stage. He is a former husband of Joan Crawford, whom she tried to separate from, but when he reappears she is too weak for him, with very unforeseen consequences. The film is beautifully made with brilliant music, and the realism of the story couldn't have been carried through more consistently. I was often irritated with Joan Crawford for her overbearing manners, but here she is quite perfect and admirable all the way.

The first part is the most interesting : it may reminds you of Montgomery Clift , as a private taking in a young child and teaching him English to communicate with him at the end of WW2 ("the search");most likely Anne Bancroft (Annie Sullivan) and her pupil Patty Duke (Helen Keller )in Arthur Penn's masterpiece "the miracle worker"(which had not been yet made) .

They hint at Helen Keller and this fictitious story may have been partly inspired by her real story ;Helen Keller spent her whole life helping her fellow men,collecting funds to create schools ,a true heroine of the last century.

But ,as soon as Mrs Landi's '(Crawford) husband (Rossano Brazzi ) appears , it's downhill all the way ;acting becomes pure camp and the story is guaranteed to net nothing but horse laughs .Only Heather Sears ,the ugly duckling turned into a swan , preserves her dignity ;an extra star fo her.

Very strange and violent tale of a lonely wife (Joan Crawford) who travels the world seeking some meaning because her estranged husband (Rossano Brazzi) has abandoned her. In the Irish village of her birth, a local priest steers her toward a girl who was traumatized in an explosion. The girl is blind and deaf and lives like an animal with a local hag. Crawford decides to try to help the girl but becomes attached and takes her to America.

Part "Miracle Worker" and part "Elmer Gantry" (this film predates both), "The Story of Esther Costello" wavers between instructional (how to teach the blind- deaf) and exploitive (how to bilk the public). An odd film for 1957 and Crawford's last starring film of the 50s. She wouldn't return to the screen until "What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?"

Well 53-year-old Crawford looks great and turns in a solid performance. Brazzi plays the snaky husband who turns out to be much more rotten than you'd guess. Heather Sears plays Esther as though she is a disciple of Jennifer Jones as Bernadette. Ron Randell is good as the crabby press agent; Lee Patterson is good as the boy friend; Bessie Love (one of Crawford's silent-film pals from 1920s MGM) is funny as a gallery patron; Fay Compton plays the head nun; Dennis O'Dea is the priest; Estelle Brody plays Tammy; John Loder is a friend. Good cast in a solid but too-long film.

The violent ending is quite jarring and unexpected.

Certainly this is one of Joan Crawford's best movies. She beautiful in the dated "Grand Hotel." She really acts in "The Women." She's fine in the high melodrama of "Possessed." She's very good in "Mildred Pierce." And "Sudden Fear" is a fine noir.

Apart from Ms. Crawford, for the moment, we have the plot: A child in Ireland is in a terrible accident, in which her mother dies. She becomes blind and deaf and loses the ability to speak as a result of the trauma. This, by the way, is the title character, not Ms. Crawford. That was also rare in her career and maybe a first here.

As someone very knowledgeable about the blind, I give this a very high rating. This is only a personal feeling but I prefer it to the famous "Miracle Worker," which to me is overwrought and, though based on a true life, not very accurate.

"The Story of Esther Costello" is accurate. The scenes at the school on Long Island to which Crawford takes Esther, well played by Heather Sears, are believable. The Braille is well researched, as are other aspects of her learning.

As Esther grows up, she becomes a very pretty young m=woman. Without giving away the plot, she is abused and raped. This is sadly still true of the lives of blind woman and women with other disabilities. They are taken advantage of by parents and other relatives, by schoolmates, and very often by spouses. The same is true, to a lesser degree, of disabled men.

Make no mistake: This is no arid treatise. It has its campy moments, as well as its legitimately exciting ones. Among the former are Crawford's swank no matter where she is and the irony of her becoming a sort of foster mother here in light of later revelations by her own daughter.

This is a painful movie but a very fine one.