The Innocents ***** (1961, Deborah Kerr, Peter Wyngarde, Megs Jenkins, Pamela Franklin, Martin Stephens, Michael Redgrave) – Classic Movie Review 504

The haunting 1961 psychological horror film The Innocents with Deborah Kerr, Peter Wyngarde and Michael Redgrave: a ‘strange new experience in shock’.

Producer-director Jack Clayton’s 1961 psychological horror film The Innocents is a haunting, nightmarish, exquisitely filmed Gothic haunted house tale of the supernatural, ghosts and spooky figures.

It stars Deborah Kerr, Peter Wyngarde, Megs Jenkins, Pamela Franklin, Martin Stephens, and Michael Redgrave, and is securely based on Henry James’s 1898 novella The Turn of the Screw, via William Archibald’s 1950 stage play version.

An ideally cast Deborah Kerr gives a commanding, first-rate twitchy performance as Miss Giddens, a young English Victorian governess hired by a wealthy bachelor family Uncle (Michael Redgrave) to look after two spooky orphaned children, his niece Flora and nephew Miles (Pamela Franklin and Martin Stephens), on his estate.

Rather surprisingly maybe, he gives her total independence and complete authority in how to raise the children. Well, she seems the brisk and capable, old-school sort, even if she lacks experience.

But, very rapidly, a spooked Miss Giddens becomes convinced that the house and grounds are haunted and that the spirits of the former governess Miss Jessel (Clytie Jessop) and valet Peter Quint (Peter Wyngarde) are possessing the children. So she decides that it’s her duty to help the kids face and exorcise the evil spirits.

The title of the film and much of the screenplay are taken from William Archibald’s 1950 Broadway stage adaptation of James’s novella. The film’s literary credential are high. Archibald, John Mortimer (responsible for additional scenes and dialogue) and Truman Capote (responsible for additional dialogue) all had hands in the literate, carefully honed screenplay.

The darkly atmospheric, lovely-looking film is beautifully photographed in black and white and CinemaScope by Freddie Francis, with minimal lighting and deep focus.

And director Clayton meticulously builds the tension, the eerie atmosphere, off-balance mood and unsettling suspense at a controlled, steady pace to its chilling climax that provides an all-time great scare.

The two kids are excellent and Peter Wyngarde is outstanding as the creepy Peter Quint. Megs Jenkins and Michael Redgrave are also essential cast members as the kindly housekeeper Mrs Grose and the children’s Uncle.

The film had an X certificate, adults only, in the old days. How times have changed! Now it’s a 12, but really it could have a PG certificate.

Studio executives were disturbed by the ‘goodnight kiss’ scene that does not occur in the novella in which the governess kisses the boy Miles directly on the lips.

The film begins with a black screen and the sound of Flora singing for several seconds, then an anguished Miss Giddens is praying on the left side of the screen, which is only explained at the film’s climax.

Clayton didn’t want the child actors exposed to the darker themes of the story, so they never saw the screenplay in its entirety. They were only given the pages of the script the day before they were to be filmed.

It was shot at the Gothic mansion of Sheffield Park in Sussex and at Shepperton Studios in Surrey.

The film pioneers synthesised electronic sound, which is created by Daphne Oram. Clayton sought changes to Georges Auric’s score, which were made by W Lambert Williamson as Auric had health problems.

It was premiered in London on 24 November 1961, distributed by 20th Century Fox. It was released in the US on 15 December in Los Angeles and Christmas Day in New York City, advertised as a ‘strange new experience in shock’. It grossed $1.2 million at the North American box office, on a budget of £430,000.

Peter Wyngarde died on 15 January 2018, aged 90.

After a short-lived glittering TV career as Jason King (1971-72), Wyngarde was destroyed by an unfortunate indecency scandal and filed for bankruptcy twice in the 1980s. Peter Wyngarde died on 15 January 2018, aged 90. He also starred in Night of the Eagle (1962).

Stephens also made Village of the Damned and The Witches, but retired from acting in 1966 (aged 18) and went on to enjoy a successful career as an architect, and currently lives in Portugal.

Franklin acted regularly till 1983, then retired. She met actor Harvey Jason on the set of Necromancy and married in 1971, settled in Hollywood and had two sons. Her husband and son Louis co-own the bookstore Mystery Pier Books Inc in West Hollywood.

Kerr’s performances in From Here to Eternity, An Affair to Remember, Black Narcissus and The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp are also unforgettable and legendary.

The cast are Deborah Kerr as Miss Giddens, Michael Redgrave as The Uncle, Peter Wyngarde as Peter Quint, Megs Jenkins as Mrs Grose, Martin Stephens as Miles, Pamela Franklin as Flora, Clytie Jessop as Miss Mary Jessel, and Isla Cameron as Anna,