Main Cast: Deborah Kerr, Megs Jenkins, Pamela Franklin, Martin Stephens, Michael Redgrave, Peter Wyngarde
Release Year: 1961
Country: UK
Run Time: 100 minutes
Plot
In this lugubrious but brilliantly realized adaptation of Henry James' classic novella The Turn of the Screw, 19th century British governess Miss Giddens (Deborah Kerr) arrives at a bleak mansion to take care of Flora (Pamela Franklin) and Miles (Martin Stephens), the wealthy household's two children. Outwardly the children are little darlings, but the governess begins to feel that there's something unwholesome behind those beatific smiles. After several disturbing examples of the children's evil impulses, Miss Giddens gets information from the housekeeper (Megs Jenkins) that suggests that the children may be possessed by malign spirits -- or are all these events just the products of Miss Giddens's own imagination? The best and most frightening vignette in The Innocents occurs when the governess casually kisses young Miles, then recoils in horror when she realizes that someone other than Miles has kissed her back. Unlike many CinemaScope productions, The Innocents plays better in the claustrophobic confines of the TV screen. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Review
The Innocents is strong proof that low-violence, atmospheric horror films were not invented by The Blair Witch Project. Based on Henry James's novella The Turn of the Screw, the film wisely leaves in doubt how much what occurs may be supernatural, and how much may be in the mind of the protagonist (Deborah Kerr). It's all the more frightening for what isn't shown, and it has endured as one of the screen's best psychological dramas. Truman Capote, whose work often dealt with repressed sexuality, was among the screenwriters. The pacing from director Jack Clayton creates a confining intensity that allows Kerr to magnify her performance. This is a very scary movie, without any of the gimmicks often associated with the horror genre. ~ Richard Gilliam, All Movie Guide
Clytie Jessop - Miss Jessel; Isla Cameron - Anna; Eric Woodburn - Coachman
Credit
Sophie Devine - Costume Designer, Motley - Costume Designer, Jack Clayton - Director, Jim Clark - Editor, Albert Fennell - Executive Producer, Georges Auric - Composer (Music Score), Lambert Williamson - Musical Direction/Supervision, Paul Dehn - Songwriter, Harold Fletcher - Makeup, Wilfred Shingleton - Production Designer, Freddie Francis - Cinematographer, Jack Clayton - Producer, Peter James - Set Designer, Truman Capote - Screenwriter, John Mortimer - Screenwriter, William Archibald - Screenwriter, Henry James - Book Author
The Innocents tells the story of a 20 year old inexperienced governess (Kerr). In the film she is called Miss Giddens but is unnamed in the source novella. She is hired by a callous socialite (Redgrave) to care for his niece and nephew in his country mansion, Bly House. He will continue to reside in London and stipulates that the whole responsibility for looking after the children is with her alone.
The gothic Bly House proves to have many dark secrets: the governess discovers that her predecessor, Miss Jessel, was having an affair with the valet Quint (Peter Wyngarde), and that each of them had died in bizarre circumstances. Thereafter, the governess starts seeing their apparitions in the house and grounds and comes to believe that the ghosts of Quint and his lover are attempting to possess the bodies of the children. The children and the housekeeper deny seeing the apparitions, but she is particularly suspicious of the boy Miles, who has been expelled from school.
According to Professor Christopher Frayling, much of the screenplay is derived from William Archibald's play of the same name, which premiered on Broadway in 1950, rather than coming directly from James' novella, though he credits Truman Capote with about 90% of the film's script as it appears on the screen. Frayling attributes the Freudian subtext to screenwriter Capote, whose contribution gives the film a Southern Gothic feel – with the governess's repressed erotic sensibility counterpointed by shots of lush and decaying plants and rapacious insect life. Clayton though choose to downplay this aspect in the finished film to preserve the ambiguity between the ghost story and Freudian element.[2]
Reportedly, when first screened. Twentieth Century Fox executives were disturbed by the scene (which doesn't occur in the novella) where the governess kisses the boy Miles directly on the lips. The film has been given a 12 rating by the BBFC. Its original classification by the BBFC was "X", which meant that no person under the age of 16 years was allowed into the cinema to see it.
In popular culture
"The Infant Kiss", a song by Kate Bush, from her 1980 album Never for Ever, was inspired by the film. An audiotrack from this film was sampled into the cursed tape of the 2002 film The Ring.
"O Willow Waly", the song from the film, written by Georges Auric and Paul Dehn and sung on the soundtrack by Isla Cameron, was released in the UK on a Decca single in March, 1962. The catalogue number was 45-F.11441.
^ This paragraph is derived from Christopher Frayling's commentary and the filmed introduction on the British Film Institute (Region 2) DVD released in 2006.
