''Thursday's Children'' is a 1954 British
short documentary film
A documentary film or documentary is a non-fictional motion-picture intended to "document reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction, education or maintaining a historical record". Bill Nichols has characterized the documentary in te ...
directed by Guy Brenton and
Lindsay Anderson about
The Royal School for the Deaf in
Margate
Margate is a seaside town on the north coast of Kent in south-east England. The town is estimated to be 1.5 miles long, north-east of Canterbury and includes Cliftonville, Garlinge, Palm Bay and Westbrook.
The town has been a significan ...
, Kent, UK, a residential school then teaching
lip reading
The lips are the visible body part at the mouth of many animals, including humans. Lips are soft, movable, and serve as the opening for food intake and in the articulation of sound and speech. Human lips are a tactile sensory organ, and can be ...
rather than sign language. Apart from music and narration, the film is nearly silent and focuses on the faces and gestures of the little boys and girls. It features methods and goals not now used, and notes that only one child in three will achieve true speech. Filmmakers Lindsay Anderson and Guy Brenton were unable to gain distribution for the film until it won an
Oscar in
1955
Events January
* January 3 – José Ramón Guizado becomes president of Panama.
* January 17 – , the first nuclear-powered submarine, puts to sea for the first time, from Groton, Connecticut.
* January 18– 20 – Battle of Yijiangs ...
for
Documentary Short Subject.
The Academy Film Archive preserved ''Thursday's Children'' in 2005.
Cast
*
Richard Burton as Narrator
See also
*
Richard Burton filmography
References
External links
*
*
1954 films
1954 documentary films
1954 short films
1950s short documentary films
Best Documentary Short Subject Academy Award winners
British black-and-white films
British short documentary films
British Sign Language films
Documentary films about deaf people
Films directed by Lindsay Anderson
Documentary films about special education
Deaf education
Films shot in Kent
1950s English-language films
1950s British films
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