Mockingbird Don't Sing

This awful story of child abuse aired in the UK on the True Movies channel (I believe). The next day at work, nearly everyone I know was intent on discussing it. The acting was excellent throughout and the interest was held by some fine directing.

There are so many points to ponder in this film. You don't have to be a psychology student to appreciate it - just a normal decent human being.

I looked this up on the IMDb because I had been reading an old interview with Harry Bromley-Davenport (in Dark Side magazine). Given the sort of films he has made in the past, I feel at last he now has a film he can be truly proud of. Well done old chap - there's clearly more to you than 'Xtro'!

I loved this movie so much that I have been trying to buy it since I saw it. I am in the middle of the book now. I could watch this movie 1000 times and not get bored. Good directing and casting!! I think anyone who sees it will come away with a feeling that will stay for days, maybe weeks!!

we had to watch this film for a psychology assignment and all i can say is that it was really fascinating! the plot was fantastic, it was so sensitively written...in fact it could have been dramatised a lot more...some films over dramatise child abuse. the actors were fantastic, especially the actress who played Katie: she was a real star! this is a fantastic movie for a psychology student as it is such a scientifically based film. only the letter at the top of the review page proves this! this is a fantastic movie for anyone interested in how people work, and for anyone who likes films with a real story behind them. i strongly recommend this film!!!!

8/9/03

Dear Sylvia Marciniak

Thank you for looking at our film "Mockingbird Don't Sing". I am the producer director.

I am intrigued by your comment that it was not accurate. In what respect, pray tell? We spent two years researching this subject and enlisted the service of Dr Susan Curtiss (named Sandra Tannen in the film) who was, as you will know from your research, present at all but the early stages of Genie/Katie's life starting a few months after she arrived at Children's hospital. We interviewed her for about 40 hours total and she was our primary source.

Susie Curtiss, now a linguistics professor at UCLA, signed off on this script as being as accurate a representation as was possible, given the constraints of having to make a drama out of the story. That is to say, we felt that all the lawsuits which followed the child's return to her mother belonged in another story.

I used many other sources, including "sealed" records from the Los Angeles courthouses, Dr Rigler, Dr Jay Shurley, John Miner, the child's onelime legal guardian, Dr Kay Natali and a host of others who were actually personally acquainted with the child and her situation for many years in the 1960s 70's and 80's.

I suspect that you have read Russ Rymer's book and New Yorker articles -- documents much derided by the actual participants in the true story because of their massive inaccuracies and because his primary contact was the child's mother, Irene (now deceased by the way). Have you read Dr Susan Curtiss' own book on the subject, I wonder: `Genie - A Psycholinguistic Study of a Modern-Day `Wild Child'

So you see, I simply can't let you get away with the broad statement at the top of your comments "It's not accurate". You may have studied this case in class, but I spent three solid years on this killing myself to do justice to the story and to make it as accurately and elegantly as possible, and -- my God -- to actually manage to get a film made about such a risky and difficult subject.

I am saddened that you chose only to respond to the verisimilitude of the film. The names were changed for silly legal reasons beyond my control, but I might have hoped for a more reflective set of comments from a psychology student.

Now I'm sorry that I've yelled my head off at you -- you're probably a perfectly decent person. You should understand that this is an important movie for me and I don't respond well to uninformed criticism. You are free to dislike the picture, of course, but don't tell me "It's not accurate".

I do hope you will find time to reply and to forgive me for being such a curmudgeon.

Sincerely,

Harry Bromley-Davenport. (Producer/Director "Mockingbird Don't Sing")

This movie should by no means be rated on it's entertainment value as some do as the true case is way too serious to consider for entertainment purposes.

I stumbled across it on a movie channel and just went along feeling more and more sad and frustrated over the total failure of the authorities to secure the interests of this poor, wretched human experiencing for 13 years a fate much worse than death and later being less than ideally where the therapists, teachers and researches take care of no. 1 first.

I don't know if anyone in America has learned anything from this case, but some historic words come into mind:

"Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

But is America really interested in helping any of these?

I missed a sharper critical profile in the movie on this aspect rather than letting everybody off easy.

The young actor did a tremendous job and can't be applauded enough.

I am not sure I want to recommend anyone seeing it, as it is way too sad. Maybe we are better off not knowing of the cruelty and stupidity some parents can subject their children to and easily get away with it.