Stars: Deborah Kerr, Michael Redgrave, Peter Wyngarde, Megs Jenkins, Martin Stephens, Pamela Franklin
Director: Jack Clayton
Oscar History: Though it was cited for Best Picture at the BAFTA Awards and starred the still-AMPAS friendly Kerr, Oscar didn't give The Innocents any nominations in 1961.
Snap Judgment Ranking: 5/5 stars
This month we are devoting all of our classic film reviews to Golden Age Horror films that I saw for the first time this year. If you want to take a look at past titles (from this and other seasons of this series), look at the bottom of the page for links.
(Spoilers Ahead-And I mean it!) The movie starts with Miss Giddens (Kerr) interviewing with a man simply known as "the Uncle" (Redgrave) about a job as a governess. Giddens is inexperienced, but the Uncle has only one request for babysitting his niece Flora (Franklin) and nephew Miles (Stephens)-that she doesn't disturb him about any issues involving the children, whom he neglects & cares little for. When she gets there, she finds out from Mrs. Grose (Jenkins), the housekeeper, that the previous governess Miss Jessel died, as did a man who worked there named Peter Quint (Wyngarde). Miss Giddens begins seeing the ghosts of Jessel & Quint, and becomes obsessed with the idea that they are influencing the children. Miss Giddens is certain that Quint was the reason, from beyond the grave, that Miles was expelled from school, and becomes determined to prove that Quint & Jessel, who were lovers in life, have possessed the children from beyond the grave to continue their relationship. Things come to a head when Miss Giddens, clearly driven a bit mad by the idea, sends away everyone except for Miles, and confronts him about the expulsion. Miles confesses that Quint taught him the insults & jokes that he played to get expelled, but when he says his name (and Quint's ghost seems to appear), it does the opposite effect of what Miss Giddens assumed it would do-it doesn't free Miles, but instead kills him. The film ends with a stunned, now driven-mad Miss Giddens cradling a dead Miles as the credits roll.
The film is shocking in a variety of ways, but perhaps the most pressing is that it's genuinely terrifying. No, there isn't a great deal of gore, but the psychological horror here that we normally don't attribute to horror films from before say, Night of the Living Dead or The Exorcist is on full-display, and it is terrifying as we continue forward. It helps that we get little reprieve from the house before Miss Giddens gets there, the claustrophobia & paranoia suffocating her, but also making it difficult for the audience to sort out if this is a true ghost story or just a repressed woman becoming obsessed with the perceived sins of two dead lovers. The movie had me clawing at my seat in the final moments, and hats off to a wordless Peter Wyngarde for haunting my nightmare for the next few weeks.
It's also shocking because it's gorgeous. The cinematography, done by the legendary Freddie Francis (who would win Oscars for Sons and Lovers and Glory), is just staggeringly good. We see a lot of extended shots of the camera moving & following a walking Miss Giddens, to the point where it almost feels like she's running circles by the end of the movie, and the night sequences are moody & filled with fiendish ambience. Honestly-Francis not getting an Oscar nomination for this work is a criminal act, as is them skipping out on the creepy score from Georges Auric, who compliments it with a chilling original song "O Willow Waly" which has later been appropriated for other trailers (and was a hit for the Kingston Trio), and you know is getting on my "My Ballot" shortlist.
The performances are all excellent as well. Franklin & Stephens are appropriately creepy as the two children, never giving a hint as to what the truth is (we leave the film with enough ambiguity about what happened as to not know if they were possessed or if this was all within Miss Giddens' imagination), which is a tricky act for a pair of young performers to pull off. Megs Jenkins is also quite strong as Mrs. Grose, a woman so desperate for friendship she can't stop Miss Giddens' assumptions about the children until it's too late (and also, we never entirely know what she believes or what she chooses to hope isn't true...it's a good bit of character work). Best-of-all, though, is Deborah Kerr. I have a couple of gaps in my film-watching with her, admittedly, but I've never seen her be this good before & didn't know she was capable of playing this kind of controlled, difficult part. She plays Miss Giddens first as super sweet, but there's something sinister as the film goes, when she becomes more reckless, determined at any cost to prove her assertions. It's the sort of horror work that the Academy regularly skips out on, but I wish they'd have made an exception for someone they had nominated for far less in previous years.
Past Horror Month Reviews (Listed Chronologically): The Golem, The Phantom of the Opera, Dracula, Frankenstein, Freaks, The Mummy, The Old Dark House, The Invisible Man, The Black Cat, The Bride of Frankenstein, Mad Love, The Raven, Werewolf of London, Dracula's Daughter, Son of Frankenstein, The Invisible Man Returns, The Mummy's Hand, The Invisible Woman, The Wolf Man, Cat People, The Ghost of Frankenstein, Invisible Agent, The Mummy's Curse, The Mummy's Tomb, Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man, Phantom of the Opera, Son of Dracula, The House of Frankenstein, The Invisible Man's Revenge, The Mummy's Ghost, The Uninvited, House of Dracula, She-Wolf of London, Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, Abbott and Costello Meet the Invisible Man, It Came from Outer Space, Creature from the Black Lagoon, Abbott & Costello Meet the Mummy, Revenge of the Creature, The Creature Walks Among Us, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Attack of the 50-Foot Woman, The Blob, The Masque of the Red Death
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