The Innocents, the spellbinding 1961 screen version of Henry James’ The Turn of the Screw. Producer/director Jack Clayton and cinematographer Freddie Francis conjure a haunting onscreen atmosphere with an eye for hypnotic, symbolic imagery, where the sunlit scenes are frequently more chilling than those set at night.
As prim governess Miss Giddens, assigned to a country estate to care for two orphaned children, Deborah Kerr is undeniably the film’s anchor, engine and rudder. The six-time Oscar nominee’s brilliant performance walks the tightrope between strength and fear, conviction and doubt.
Pamela Franklin is terrific as the angelic Flora in her screen debut, displaying hints of the preternatural maturity that would show up again and again throughout her career (The Legend of Hell House, Food of the Gods). And, as young master Miles, Martin Stephens manages to top his captivating turn from the previous year’s Village of the Damned, delivering a magnificently layered turn that flickers between childlike precociousness and a sinister, almost sexually predatory quality.
One of the finest ghost stories ever committed to celluloid, The Innocents is often compared to Robert Wise’s The Haunting (1963), another stellar example of prolonged tension tempered with minimal special effects and deep, troubling, emotionally mature subject matter. The two films also share a common theme of lead female protagonists utterly undone by their reactions to the mysteries around them, where we are never quite sure if what they see (and we, through their eyes) is reality or fiction.
Join AC and his incredible panel of guests (Kait Astrella, Mark Easteadt, Nicola McCafferty, Tyler Pistorius, Michael Orlando Yaccarino) as we celebrate 65 years of THE INNOCENTS!!!
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