When I was going to high school in the early 1990s, there were two books that became required reading when it came time for my history classes to study the Holocaust: Elie Wiesel’s Night and Anne Frank - The Diary of a Young Girl. While Elie Wiesel’s story was primarily an autobiography inside a Nazi concentration camp, Anne Frank’s book was about hiding out from the Nazis during the occupation of Amsterdam. Both of these books paint a picture of what it was like inside these occupied countries during the war and how hopeless this situation was for Jewish people at this time.
While the American education system isn’t what it used to be, it still teaches about World War II and the Holocaust. But this dark bit of history isn’t covered nearly as much as it used to be, and this has helped in the rise of Holocaust deniers who insist that this never happened despite the ample evidence to the contrary. When I talked with my youngest son, who just graduated high school, he told me that they barely studied it and he had no idea who Anne Frank even was. He’d never seen The Diary of Anne Frank, something that used to be regular viewing when I was growing up; I saw it at least three of the four years I was in high school as part of the curriculum. It saddens me that this is a bit of history that is beginning to fade from people’s memories the further into the past it falls, for this is a story that really needs to stay in our minds, especially now when it feels like the world is gearing up for another round of racial purging. Forgetting our past only leads to us repeating it.
Anne Frank’s diary was a record the young girl kept from the weeks leading up to their hiding all the way through to when they were captured. This diary was left behind when she and the rest of her family, as well as the others who were in hiding with them, were taken to a concentration camp. Of all the captives, only Otto Frank, the father, survived. He returned to Amsterdam in hopes of finding news of his family. What he found, instead, was his daughter’s diary, preserved and intact. Knowing she had wanted to be a writer, Otto had it published, after some editing to remove content he didn’t want released. More recently, the unedited version of the diary was published and the removed portions paint an even better picture of the girl she was.
The diary was adapted into a stage play not long after publication. Then, in 1959, that stage play was adapted into a film. This film would not find success in theaters at the time with the biggest complaints being aimed at the runtime, but it has since been reevaluated and viewed as a classic and an important film tackling the subject of the Jews during the war. This film, however, chooses not to focus on the war - we get so little information on it - but on the relationships of the families locked away together awaiting a time when they may walk freely in the world again. That is what we get and for three hours we will feel as claustrophobic as they most likely did, sequestered away for two years in fear for their lives.
Familiarity with the history aids this story. While the film indicates in the opening scene that the father has survived when his family has not, it does not go into any details of what happened to them. We are left to wonder if they were executed or died from disease or malnutrition. While the exact details are speculative, we know some things about the final fate of Anne and the rest. Knowing that history sets a tone over the entire picture, one that greatly enhances our empathy for all those involved. It also casts a sense of dread over certain scenes, especially when they are all celebrating the Allied invasion, thinking that freedom was imminent. That was in the late summer of 1944 and, knowing how long it took for the Allied troops to invade Berlin and effectively end the war, it is hard for us to celebrate along with them.
Millie Perkins is playing the young Anne Frank. She was almost a decade older than the character she was playing, but her physicality and stature do a good job hiding that. The role was originally offered to Audrey Hepburn, who was a further seven years older than that, but Audrey insisted she was too old for the part. On top of that, she had gone through the Holocaust herself and did not want to relive those emotions on film. Millie, who had never been in a movie before, accepted the role instead. By having an unknown in the role, it helps sell the narrative. There is an innocence to Millie that plays well with this character. She is able to humanize the drama as well as the fears. In the final scene, for instance, when the soldiers are breaking into their hiding spot, Millie sells the moment by remaining perfectly still, saying nothing, but conveying the hopelessness and dread through nothing more than tears rolling down her cheeks. This is an underrated performance that deserves more accolades than it got.
The Academy, especially at this time, saw more merit in the more flashy performances. Shelley Winters, playing Petronella, the mother of the van Daan family who are also hiding out, won an Academy Award for her performance here. She has the added stress of a husband who is selfish to the point of selling off her most prized possessions for cigarette money and sneaking out of his room at night to steal food. She defends him but also knows that what he is doing is wrong. Upon the announcement of Shelley’s Oscar nomination, she promised that if she won the award, that statuette would be donated to the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam. She won and she did donate it to the house where it stands to this day, a tribute to the great tragedy that happened on that spot.
Ed Wynn, who was mostly associated with comedic performances, also got nominated for this film. He is playing Albert Dussel, a Jewish dentist who joins the families in hiding later on. Dussel is played to comedic effect but not in the usual way you would see Ed Wynn acting up. Here, he is a complainer and a bit of a hypochondriac. We know from history that he was also killed in one of the camps after being caught in hiding, but if you didn’t know that history, you might suspect that he was a spy amongst the group. He’s Jewish but apparently not devout as he knows nothing of the traditions or celebrations. Couple that with some of the things that almost happen to the families after he arrives, and you would be forgiven for believing he might be behind any of it.
A major plot point revolves around the blossoming relationship between Anne and Peter van Deen (Richard Beymer). There is a three-year difference in age between them, which, as an adult, wouldn’t be an issue, but with him being only sixteen, it feels too much. Still, forgetting that Anne is only thirteen when the film starts, this relationship is one of the sweeter aspects of this film. They start out antagonizing each other, but by the end, we get tender moments between them, such as when she is ducking underneath the laundry lines and popping up in frame to rest her head silently on his shoulder. Nothing is said in this moment, and that is just perfect.
This film is intended to show us that the Frank and van Deen families were no different than any other families. We are meant to see familiarity when watching them. That is the power of storytelling in this instance. It allows us to sympathize with them and feel the stress of being found out that permeates the entire film. This is a long film, and there are moments that may seem drawn out too long, but it is intentionally done that way to get us into their frame of mind. Because of this, though, some people found it too long and slow, which probably contributed to its failure at the box office.
The Diary of Anne Frank used to be required viewing in school. It needs to be, again. A drama such as this one helps cement in the minds of the viewers just what it was like to be a Jewish family in a Nazi-occupied country. We have so many dramas about soldiers on the battlefield or the families that stayed behind during the war, but there are precious few movies about those that were in hiding, fearing for their lives for years while the war raged on elsewhere. This is one of the best films to dramatize this, and it does so by remaining relatively faithful to the words of a young girl as written in her diary. Had the point-of-view character been her father, we may have had more info about the war itself and the camps after they all were captured, but because it is based on Anne’s point of view, it gives it a unique feel and perspective, helping it stand out from other autobiographies. No one, save for Otto, survives this ordeal, yet because of this film, they will all live on in our memories, where they serve as a reminder of why we fought in that war in the first place and what really was at stake.
Academy Award Nominations:
Best Motion Picture: George Stevens
Best Director: George Stevens
Best Supporting Actor: Ed Wynn
Best Supporting Actress: Shelley Winters (won)
Best Art Direction - Black-and-White: Lyle R. Wheeler, George W. Davis, Walter M. Scott, and Stuart A. Reiss (won)
Best Cinematography - Black-and-White: William C. Mellor (won)
Best Costume Design - Black-and-White: Charles LeMaire and Mary Wills
Best Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture: Alfred Newman
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Release Date: March 18, 1959
Running Time: 179 minutes
Not Rated
Starring: Millie Perkins, Joseph Schildkraut, Richard Beymer, Shelley Winters, Diane Baker, and Ed Wynn
Directed By: George Stevens
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