Themes: Rape & Sexual Abuse, Kids in Trouble, Innocence Lost
Main Cast: Marlon Brando, Stephanie Beacham, Thora Hird, Verna Harvey, Christopher Ellis
Release Year: 1971
Country: UK
Run Time: 96 minutes
Plot
Marlon Brando delivers a respectably creepy performance in the Michael Winner directed The Nightcomers -- a film inspired by the characters in Henry James' The Turn of the Screw. On a British country estate, two recently-orphaned children, Miles (Christopher Ellis) and Flora (Verna Harvey), live on their own with only a nurse, housekeeper, and gardener as companions. Miles and Flora are particularly fascinated by the gardener, Quint (Marlon Brando). In fact, fascinated to the point of obsession, the boy and girl model their young lives after him. When Quint becomes involved with the prim and proper nurse, Miles surreptitiously views their love-making and keeps it in mind for future reference. Gradually, Miles and Flora adopt the gardener and the nurse's love-hate relationship for their own, copying their adult behavior with child-like abandon. Finally, when the housekeeper finds out and decides to fire the gardener and the nurse, the children are thrown into a panic. Not wanting their two favorite subjects to be separated, the children decide to take things into their own hands. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
Harry Andrews - Master of the House; Anna Palk - Governess
Credit
Herbert Westbrook - Art Director, Michael Winner - Director, Frederick Wilson - Editor, Jerry Fielding - Composer (Music Score), Jerry Fielding - Musical Direction/Supervision, Richard Mills - Makeup, Robert Paynter - Cinematographer, Michael Winner - Producer, Michael Hastings - Screenwriter
Recently orphaned, Flora and Miles are abandoned by their new guardian (Harry Andrews) and entrusted to the care of housekeeper Mrs. Grose (Thora Hird), governess Miss Jessel (Stephanie Beacham), and Peter Quint (Brando) the former valet and now gardener. With only these three adults for company, the children live an isolated life in the sprawling country manor estate. The children are particularly fascinated by Peter Quint due to his eclectic knowledge and engaging stories, and willingness to entertain them. With this captive audience, Quint doses out his strange philosophies on love and death. The governess, Miss Jessel, also falls under Peter's spell, and despite her repulsion the two embark on a sadomasochistic love affair. Flora and Miles become fascinated with this relationship, and help Quint and Jessel to escape the interference of disapproving Mrs. Grose. The children begin spying on Quint and Jessel's violent trysts and mimick what they see, including the bondage, culminating in Miles nearly pushing Flora off a building to her death. Mrs. Grose determines to write to the absent Master of the House in order to get both Quint and Jessel fired. The children are most distressed by this, and decide to take matters into their own hands to prevent the separation. Acting on Quint's assertions that love is hate and it is only in death that people can truly be united, the children murder Miss Jessel by knocking a hole in the boat she uses to wait for Quint (who never keeps the appointments), knowing that she cannot swim. Quint later finds Miss Jessel's rigid body in the water, but is given little time to mourn before Miles kills him with a bow and arrow. The film ends with the arrival of a new governess, presumably the one who features in The Turn of the Screw.
The children in the film are portrayed as being a few years older than in the Henry James novel, probably due to the sexual nature of the film and their roles in it (Verna Harvey was in fact 19 at the time).[1]
Reception and awards
The film has received mixed reviews. Brando's performance earned him a nomination for a Best Actor BAFTA, but recent audiences have criticised his cartoonish Irish accent.[2] The film has an 80% fresh rating at Rotten Tomatoes.[3] Some reviewers have objected to the film's premise of showing what happened before the novel, as this threatens the ambiguity the novel explores.[4] The manor house in the film is Sawston Hall, a 16th century Tudor manor house in Sawston, Cambridgeshire.
