“Who would ever think that so much can go on in the soul of a young girl?”

For as long as I can remember, by favorite book has always been Anne Frank’s The Diary of a Young Girl. Since tonight begins Hanukkah, I was thinking about the book and the movie as well, in particular the Hanukkah scene. I have read the diary around six or seven times, have watched the movie a few times, and have seen two plays about Anne Frank. I think during this holiday season, it is important to talk about the film about Anne’s brief but inspiring life.

The diary was turned into a Pulitzer award-winning play and then was adapted by Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett into a film, which was directed by George Stevens. The 1959 film, The Diary of Anne Frank, was a major project of Stevens and he put a lot of himself into telling the story. Stevens spent four years working on the film, used black and white to create more drama, and Otto Frank as well as Johannes Kleiman were consulted during the making of the film.

The role of Anne was offered to both Audrey Hepburn and Natalie Wood. Audrey refused because she had lived in Holland during the same time as Anne and has witness the Nazi occupation and brutality first hand. She did not want to bring back old memories. Millie Perkins, instead, played Anne with Joseph Schildkraut as her father Otti, Gusti Huber as her mother Edith, and Diane Baker as her sister Margot. Shelley Winters played Mrs. Van Daan and won one of the three Oscars for the film for the supporting role. Other roles were Ed Wynn as Albert Dussell, Richard Beymer as Peter, Lou Jacobi as Mr. Van Daan, Douglas Spencer as Kraler, and Dodie Heath as Miep.

There are a plethora of reviews for the film. You can read this one, thanks to Apolloguide.com. Another comes from Altfg.com. This one comes from the Oscar Movies blog. And another great review and synopsis can be found here, thanks to beliefnet.com. If you want more information about Anne Frank, you can access the home site of the American Anne Frank Museum or the site that houses both the one of the house she hid in and the official Anne Frank website. At the bottom of this post, I will place the trailer for the 1959 film.

In one of the last pages of her diary, just before she was captured and taken away, Anne wrote: “In spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart”. I believe this is a testament to how brave and how hopeful humanity can be, even surrounded by the most fearsome adversity and despair. No matter your religious practices, this is the spirit that the holiday season embodies. And to any Jewish readers out there, Chag Chanuka Sameach.