Experts on old movies, help please.

[Aristus]

I remember watching an old movie on TV back when I was 7 or so. I only saw it once, can't remember the title or any of the actors, but I've never forgotten the story.

Old black-and-white film from the 1950's. Maybe the late 1940's.

Some young kids are playing in a basement or an old abandoned factory or something. They find some old WWII ordinance, including a hand grenade, and begin to play with it. In the scramble back and forth as to who gets the goodies, someone pulls the pin on the grenade. Most of the kids run away after that happens, but one young girl is left in the basement, (or wherever) when the grenade goes off, rendering her blind and deaf.

Most of the movie is about her attempts to adapt to life without these two senses. She learns sign language and spelling in the hand (whatever you call that) and grows to be a successful and admired young women. I seem to remember that there was an older woman, who I think was the girl's mother. She learns to love having the girl depend on her so much. After a number of years, the girl miraculously regains her sight and hearing, and the mother is devastated, rather than overjoyed.

Does this film sound familiar to anyone? And if so, do you know the title?

[struggle4progress]

1. "In the small village of Cloncraig, Ireland in 1948, young Esther Costello leads a band of children

leads a band of children on a treasure hunt. In a ruined old house, they find a box of grenades, and as the children wrestle one another for possession of one of the explosives, Esther's mother calls her, sending the children into hiding. When Esther puts the grenade down, the pin slips out, causing it to explode, killing Mrs. Costello and rendering Esther blind and deaf ..."
Story of Esther Costello (1957)
http://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/91520/The-Story-of-Esther-Costello/#

Beginning matches your description but maybe not the end

[Aristus]

2. Hey, that's IT! Thank you, s4p!

I remembered the part about Joan Crawford's character picking up the guy at the airport, and bringing a gun along, and the two of them ending up dead, but I couldn't place it in my memory properly. And the local TV station must have cut the rape scene out of the broadcast, because I seem to remember the girl miraculously regaining her sight because a men's cufflink fell to the floor next to her bed. :wtf:

Anyway, it's nice to put a title to the memory after all these years. (I think I saw the film in 1976...)