The Diary of Anne Frank (1959)

The Diary of Anne Frank has come to be almost the representative story of the Jewish holocaust experience. However the story is really not representative in a couple of ways, primary that Anne and her family were so successful at hiding from the Nazi's for so long, something like two years, most didn't get a chance to really hide, or at least not for long, and also the story that Anne's diary tells ends before her capture, time in a concentration camp and death. But because the story is told through the eyes of a young girl, only 13 when she starts her narrative, its accessible to a wide audience and here in the states is generally taught in the Jr. High or Middle School years, where it works well at introducing kids similar in age to Anne to the horrors of the Nazi's final solution.

This film adaptation is not direct from the book, but rather its based on the Pulitzer winning 1955 play which adapted many of its lines straight from Anne's diary. The film version was originally to have been directed by William Wyler, who did such definitive World War II home front pictures as Mrs. Miniver and The Best Years of Our Lives. However as often happens in pre-production things change and the film was ultimately directed by George Stevens. Stevens pictures like Giant an Shane  were often delivered on a large canvas, so the closterphobic setting for Anne Frank may seem counter intuitive, but I believe he was the right choice to direct because Stevens also possessed the tremendous sense of character empathy which this picture required, he also makes great use of the four story set they built of the of the Amsterdam building were Anne, her family, and a few others hid for those two plus years.

The drama here for me was not as interesting as the idea of the situation Anne found herself in. Millie Perkins is good as Anne, she's not a tremendous actress but she manages to carry the producing's with the right amount of innocence, preconsciousness and character growth for the part. A good assortment of supporting players as the Franks and the other Jews who shared there hiding place, include Joseph Schildkraut reprising his stage role as Otto Frank, Shelley Winters who won an Oscar as Petronella van Daan, and Lou Jacobi also reprising his stage role as Hans van Daan. I also want to point out Diane Baker for her nicely underplayed performance as Anne's intensely private sister Margot.

I had forgotten a lot of the details of the story, but as I said the idea of their situation was more interesting to me then the day-to-day incidentals. There are few strong moments of suspense in the film, including multiple break-ins to the office bellow the Franks cramped attic hiding place. This film is one of the first made in America to really deal with the Holocaust, which as a subject matter was so often skirted and walked around by the post war pop culture, witness the complete lack of reference to the subject in the Oscar winning Gentleman's Agreement (1947) which was suppose to be about anti-Semitism! The Diary of Anne Frank is a well handled rendering of an iconic story, not as deep or brutally honest as much later work about the Holocaust, but possessing a subtle poignancy capable of reaching a large audience. ***1/2