The Diary of Anne Frank (1959)
Directed by George Stevens

Film Review

Since its initial publication in 1947, Anne Frank's The Diary of a Young Girl has deservedly acquired a worldwide readership and now ranks as one of the most important works of 20th century literature.  Alongside other essential writings of the Holocaust - notably Viktor Frankl's Man's Search For Meaning (1959) and Eddy de Wind's Last Stop Auschwitz (1946) - Anne Frank's vivid account of her period in hiding from the Nazis during the Second World War provides the most powerful testament of the resilience of the human spirit in the face of the most appalling of circumstances - a work that is all the more astonishing as it emerges from one of the darkest phases in human history as a shining beacon of hope for the whole of mankind.  The fact that it was written by a girl at the age of 13 and 14 makes it all the more remarkable - and poignant.

Anne Frank's diary has inspired numerous plays and works for television and cinema, the most notable being a stage play written by Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett that was widely performed across America after a phenomenally successful run on Broadway from 1955 to 1957.  The play's popularity was bolstered by George Stevens's extravagant big screen adaptation, which succeeds admirably in conveying the essence of Frank's incomparable journal - in particular its unwavering faith in the essential goodness of human beings - whilst committing a toe-curling litany of cinematic faux pas that make the film virtually unwatchable today.

It was whilst serving as the head of a film unit with the US Army Signal Corps during WWII that George Stevens was first confronted with the horrific reality of the Nazi Holocaust.  His filmed footage of the Allies' discovery of the Dachau concentration camp was presented as evidence at the Nuremberg Trials and provides crucial firsthand testimony of the atrocities committed as part of Hitler's Final Solution.  A decade and a half later, Stevens' eagerness to adapt Goodrich and Hackett's play was understandable, although by this stage in his career he was perhaps temperamentally unsuited for the task, his burgeoning monomania amply reflected in his increasingly grandiose cinematic endeavours.

George Stevens made The Diary of Anne Frank between his two most extravagant films - the overblown soap-style melodrama Giant (1956) and even more staggeringly bloated Biblical epic The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965) - and suffers from the director's obvious inability to rein in his ridiculously over-the-top ambitions.  The film's length - it runs to just under three hours - is enough to put off most spectators, but what is far more damaging to the film's credibility is its excruciating sentimentalising of a subject which, had it been tackled in a more suitably subdued vain, could well have made this one of the greatest films of its time.  Right from the start, the film's lavish production standards - painfully emphasised by the decision to shoot it in CinemaScope - serve to diminish its source's carefully woven tapestry of humanist feeling, whilst the artificial blockings (with actors arranged facing the camera, rigidly placed in unnatural poses purely for artistic effect) and contrived lighting effects show us a director who is far more interested in playing le grand auteur than in venturing on an authentic exploration of the human soul.

The casting of Millie Perkins, a highly photogenic 20-year-old model - in the role of 13-year-old Anne Frank has always been a point of contention, although Perkins does a reasonable job (in her first screen role) of capturing on screen the rich and vibrant personality that we find in Frank's insightful diary.  Less pardonable was the decision to cast Shelley Winters in the supporting role of Petronella van Daan, a part that has so obviously been 'beefed up' by the screenwriters to make it more attractive to an actress of Miss Winters' standing.  The result, predictably, is that Winters (the most charismatic member of the cast by some margin) steals every scene she appears in and had no difficulty walking off with the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress.  The fact that far better, more suitably judged performances are supplied by Joseph Schildkraut, Gusti Huber and Lou Jacobi (the only three members of the original stage version to appear in the film) shows just what a terrible mistake the casting of Shelley and Perkins was.  As Anne's father, Schildkraut is particularly worthy of praise for the devastating humanity he brings to his performance - something that isn't fully appreciated until the final scene of the film where the fate of Anne is revealed in a moment of heart-wrenching poignancy.

Visually, The Diary of Anne Frank is a stylistic tour de force, such is the quality of the art direction and cinematography, both of which were worthy recipients of Oscars.  Although the CinemaScope widescreen format diminishes the impact considerably, these work well to create a very tangible sense of the unbearable tension and unending claustrophobia experienced by Anne and her comrades in hiding as they struggle to live alongside one another for the best part of two years.  Alfred Newman's score is the only part of the production that can termed understated - barely noticed for most of the film, it adds greatly to the oppressive atmosphere and succeeds in heightening the tension to an unbearable pitch at the most dramatic moments - those when the people in hiding come within a hair's breadth of being discovered by the authorities.

The Diary of Anne Frank falls way short of the masterpiece that George Stevens presumably had in mind when he embarked on the project with his over-ample 3.8 million dollar budget.  Over-long, sluggishly paced and too artistically self-conscious to ever do justice to its source material, the film will come as a major disappointment to anyone with expectations of something matching up to the dazzling brilliance of Anne Frank's famous journal.  Horribly flawed though it is, the film has its moments of heartrending sublimity that somehow make up for its multiple failings.  The transition from the shooting down of an Allied aircraft on a bombing mission by the Allies to a modest Hanukkah feast is as inspired as it is moving, chiming with Anne's undying ethos that the flame of hope can never be extinguished.  The endless scenes of petty squabbling between the Franks and Van Daans soon becomes exasperating, but in between these dives into sordid mundanity there are plenty of more engaging asides in which the psychological effect of the self-imposed incarceration is dealt with more humanely and sensitively.  Anne's evolving relationship with the curmudgeonly dentist Dussel and first (and only) teen crush Peter are scripted and performed in a way that makes these the authentic heart of the film, untainted by the tacky bursts of psychodrama and sentimentality that intrude too often elsewhere.

It is in the last few minutes of the film that the full emotional impact of The Diary of Anne Frank is felt.  As a visibly broken old man recounts the terrible fate of the others who shared his ordeal in hiding - including his beloved daughter Anne - we have our hearts momentarily lacerated by the abject tragedy of the Holocaust - not in a violently shocking way, but in a manner that feels charged with loving tenderness.  As far as Holocaust cinema goes, George Stevens' sprawling overblown blockbuster lacks the searing impact of, say, Alain Resnais's Nuit et Brouillard (1966) or Roberto Benigni's Life is Beautiful (1997), but it still manages to get across Anne Frank's vital messages to humankind, albeit far less eloquently and succinctly than she herself does in her now legendary personal diary.

Film Synopsis

In July 1945, Otto Frank, a man in his mid-fifties, arrives at a disused spice factory in Amsterdam and climbs a staircase to a concealed annex on the top floor of the building.  It was here that he and his family lived in secret for two whole years, constantly fearful of being found by the police and deported to the Nazi concentration camps - a fate that had already befallen many of their fellow Jews.  As he revisits the cramped living space that was home to his and one other family Herr Frank is met by the two kind souls who kept them safe and fed - the factory manager Mr Kraler and his faithful secretary Miep.  Frank cannot conceal his joy at discovering the diary in which his teenage daughter Anne recorded her experiences of hiding from the Nazis.

Anne Frank's account begins in July 1942, not long after she has settled in the modest garret rooms with her father, mother and sister Margot.   At Mr Kraler's request, this family is joined by another - the Van Daans - whose son Peter is about the same age as Anne.  As Mr Frank takes charge of his children's education, the Van Daan couple become prone to bickering as the reality of their present predicament takes its toll.  Tensions are further raised when the two families are forced to accommodate another Jew, a dentist named Albert Dussell.  The latter takes an immediate dislike to Peter's precious cat Moucshi, insisting that it be got rid of before it gives them away to the passing night patrols.  Dussell's fears are borne out when, one evening, a thief breaks into the factory and steals a typewriter.  The hiding Jews are very nearly discovered when two policemen thereupon enter the building and conduct a meticulous search.

As the months pass, Anne begins to notice changes in herself and experiences a sense that her life is just beginning.  Instead of teasing Peter, she finds herself strangely attracted to him, and he too feels drawn to confide in her his most intimate thoughts.  Of the eight people living in the concealed garret, these are the two who are most optimistic about their future prospects.  In the spring of 1944, news comes through on the radio that the Allies have landed in Normandy and are making steady progress in driving back the German armies.  It seems that the ordeal of the Franks and the Van Daans is nearing its end.  And indeed it is - but not in the way they had hoped...