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Deaf Major 
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A deaf,
young man creates a computer to allow him to hear |
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Yvonne has sent the following review: |
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The story
opens with Marcia (Deana Jurgens) a hearing/ |
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speech
therapist collecting her car from repair shop. Whilst |
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waiting she
asks for help with a crossword puzzle. The only |
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person who
can help is Casey (Timothy Bottoms). She soon |
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realises
that he is deaf and she finds that he cannot read lips, |
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speak nor
sign. Intrigued by him, she tries to communicate |
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with him by
writing but he will have none of it. She speaks to |
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Casey's boss
about his deafness in front of an insurance |
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safety
officer and this eventually results in both Casey and his |
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She follows
him to apologise and on a second try gets inside |
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his home. He
gets her to talk into a microphone, which |
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translates
her spoken words into type on the computer |
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screen. It
also translates typed words to mechanical sounding speech. She
is very excited by his invention and encourages |
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him to let
her ex-boyfriend Lester (Troy Donahue) see the |
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computer, as
his business would be able to develop it. She |
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makes a
condition that Casey must visit her clinic and have |
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an
assessment by the doctor (John Phillip Law). He |
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The
examination reveals that a cochlear implant operation |
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might
restore his hearing and the doctor asks Marcia to break the news.
Meanwhile Lester sees the invention and wants to produce it.
He unintentionally mentions the operation before Casey has
been told about it. Casey is furious that he has not been told
and tells Marcia how hearing people make him feel like a freak
and that he hates being deaf and wants to hear more than
anything. Marcia persuades him to take a chance on the
operation. |
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He is
deliriously happy to find that he has full hearing restored. |
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However, he
cannot understand spoken words or speak, so |
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Marcia
undertakes his tuition in the clinic. They become increasingly close
and intimate despite Casey's
initial reluctance due to his inexperience.
Meanwhile his invention has been developed by Lesters
company, not as an aid for the deaf but for things like trivial
computer games.
Casey has made a lot of money and moves to an incredible
unique house. He spends all his time developing a computer
called Osgood that is able to communicate and make its own
decisions. Osgood points out that Casey's hearing is
deteriorating. The fact that his implant is being rejected is
confirmed by the doctor. He is very upset and decided to
break the relationship with Marcia but he does not tell her that
he is going deaf.
Meanwhile Lesters company has realised that the contract on
the inventions is short term and that all the patents are
reverting to Casey. They give Lester the sack and when
Casey returns to the house he finds that Osgood has been
destroyed by Lester.
Marcia arrives, having been told that he has lost his hearing by his
ex-boss. She finds him deaf and defeated. Casey can
still speak of course and by lip-reading Marcia, he is
encouraged to start afresh and rebuild a new better computer. She
persuades him to take a vacation.
Before he goes, Casey visits Lester's company where he
barges into the M.D.'s office and after dropping the torn up
contracts on his desk, he punches him and then leaves with
Marcia for their life together.
Comments.
No beating around the bush. This film is terrible.
The acting, except Timothy Bottoms, was universally
appalling. Deana Jurgens whole range seems to be to
earnestly shout into the camera. The writing and possibly
direction too had a lot to answer for. Can you imagine, a
therapist or doctor working in a hearing
clinic with hearing impaired people, do any of the following.
Sound the horn to attract a deaf person's attention, shout at
him,speak very quickly and excitedly to a lip-reading person or
a doctor who discusses a patient with a therapist and then
lets her go to the patient's house to explain about an
operation.
There were a couple of repeated, slow motion shots, one was of Casey
screaming when he finds the computer ruined and the other was of
Ms Jurgens naked body falling onto the bed both are completely
unnecessary, weird and the second is exploitative.
The plot was sheer nonsense made worse by being backed
by ignorance of hearing impairment and medical facts.
I believe that one of the positive functions of films involving
disability is the dissemination of information.
Pleased, as I am that, Casey is clearly shown as having
superior intelligence, I find it unlikely that with no education in
language skills other than written, he would have acquired the
kind of language ability that would enable him to be able to
teach a computer how to talk.
The misinformation on the medical facts were particularly
irritating, the information about meningitis seems to be wrong, as is
the idea that a cochlear implant will restore normal bilateral
hearing. The implant itself was shown to be wholly inside the body
with no external parts, which is inaccurate. (If you want to hear a
demo of what a cochlear implant sounds like then try
http://www.utdallas.edu/~loizou/cimplants/).
I doubt that restoring hearing to an adult would enable them to
acquire perfect understanding of speech and ability to speak
especially if they had none before.
I found it inaccurate that after becoming deaf again, Casey was able
to lip-read Marcia's, fast paced, complicated speech with no
difficulty.
I am left with a question of why this film was made, it seems to have
no merits at all.
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Notes
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