The Nightcomers ** (1971, Marlon Brando, Stephanie Beacham, Thora Hird, Harry Andrews) – Classic Movie Review 5872

The ever-enterprising producer-director Michael Winner was a great entrepreneur and managed to film with some of cinema’s biggest names – here in 1971 it is Marlon Brando. The movies, well, they were something else.

Based on characters from the Henry James Henry James classic book, Michael Hastings’s screenplay is a prequel spin-off from Turn of the Screw, with the children from the Henry James story watching as gardener Peter Quint (Brando) and governess Ms Margaret Jessell (Stephanie Beacham) enjoy sadomasochistic sex games.

It is a provocative, interesting film, atmospherically made and involvingly performed, catching Brando in the last phase of his prime. But it is all too scrappy and sensationalist to be distinguished. If it is unedifying, it is also quite scrappy and not at all well made.

Also in the cast are Thora Hird as Mrs Grose, Harry Andrews as the Master of the House, Verna Harvey as Flora, Christopher Ellis as Miles and Anna Palk as the New Governess.

Turn of the Screw was earlier filmed, and very well, as The Innocents in 1961.

© Derek Winnert 2017 Classic Movie Review 5872

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