The Innocents (1961)

Director:

Jack Clayton

Writers:

Henry James (novel)
John Mortimer (additional scenes & dialogue)
(more)

Release Date:

November 1961 (UK)

Genre:

Horror

Tagline:

Apparitions? Evils? Corruptions?

Plot:

A young governess for two children becomes convinced that the house and grounds are haunted.

Plot Keywords:

Children | Governess | Valet | England | Girl

Awards:

Nominated for 2 BAFTA Film Awards. Another 3 wins & 3 nominations

Cast

Deborah Kerr	...	Miss Giddens
Peter Wyngarde	...	Peter Quint
Megs Jenkins	...	Mrs. Grose
Michael Redgrave	...	The Uncle
Martin Stephens	...	Miles
Pamela Franklin	...	Flora
Clytie Jessop	...	Miss Jessel
Isla Cameron	...	Anna
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Eric Woodburn	...	Coachman (uncredited)

Directed by
Jack Clayton

Writing credits
Henry James		(novel "The Turn of the Screw")
John Mortimer		(additional scenes & dialogue)
William Archibald		(screenplay) and
Truman Capote		(screenplay)

Produced by
Jack Clayton	....	producer
Albert Fennell	....	executive producer

Original Music by
Georges Auric

Cinematography by
Freddie Francis		(director of photography)

Film Editing by
Jim Clark		(as James Clark)

Art Direction by
Wilfred Shingleton		(as Wilfrid Shingleton)

Costume Design by
Sophie Devine		(as Motley)

Makeup Department
Gordon Bond	....	hairdresser
Harold Fletcher	....	makeup artist

Production Management
James H. Ware	....	production manager (as James Ware)
Claude Watson	....	unit manager

Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Michael Birkett	....	assistant director
Ken Softley	....	third assistant director (uncredited)
Claude Watson	....	second assistant director (uncredited)

Art Department
Peter James	....	set dresser
Alan Evans	....	scenic artist (uncredited)
James Sawyer	....	draughtsman (uncredited)
Gus Walker	....	construction manager (uncredited)
Tony Woollard	....	draughtsman (uncredited)

Sound Department
Buster Ambler	....	sound recordist (as A.G. Ambler)
John Cox	....	sound recordist
Peter Musgrave	....	dubbing editor
Ken Ritchie	....	boom operator
Daphne Oram	....	electronic sound effects (uncredited)

Camera and Electrical Department
Maurice Gillett	....	supervising floor electrician
Ray Jones	....	camera grip
Ronnie Taylor	....	camera operator (as Ronald Taylor)
Bernard Ford	....	focus puller (uncredited)
Ronnie Maasz	....	focus puller (uncredited)
Simon Ransley	....	clapper loader (uncredited)

Editorial Department
Mary Kessel	....	assistant editor

Music Department
Lambert Williamson	....	conductor (as W. Lambert Williamson)

Other crew
Pamela Mann	....	continuity
Jeanie Sims	....	script editor

Production Companies

• Achilles
• Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation

Distributors

• Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation (1961) (USA) (theatrical)
• Deutsche Fox (1962) (West Germany) (theatrical)
• Fox Films (1962) (Finland) (theatrical)
• 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment (2006) (Brazil) (DVD)
• 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment (2005) (Canada) (DVD)
• 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment (2005) (USA) (DVD)
• British Film Institute (BFI) (2006) (UK) (DVD)
• Capelight Pictures (2006) (Germany) (DVD)
• Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) (1970) (USA) (TV)
• Fox Video (USA) (laserdisc)
• Lumière Home Entertainment (2009) (Netherlands) (DVD)
• Umbrella Entertainment (2005) (Australia) (DVD)
• Umbrella Entertainment (2012) (Australia) (video) (VOD)
• Yleisradio (YLE) (1981) (Finland) (TV)

Other Companies

• Bausch & Lomb  lenses

Also Known As:

Runtime:

100 min

Country:

USA | UK

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Westrex Recording System)

Certification:

Australia:PG | Finland:K-16 | France:U (re-release) | Sweden:15 | USA:Approved (PCA #20046) | UK:12A (re-rating) (2005) | UK:X (original rating) | Portugal:M/12 | Canada:G (Quebec) | West Germany:16

Filming Locations:

Bluebell Railway, East Sussex, England, UK

Company:

Achilles

Trivia:

Jack Clayton was dismayed to learn that 20th Century Fox insisted on making the film in CinemaScope. His cinematographer Freddie Francis set about making that less of a problem by framing the wide horizontal frame with lots of vertical lines to break it up. Conversely, he also used the wide space to emphasize shadowy spaces and using the emptiness towards an unsettling effect. To that end, he would often place characters at opposite ends of the frame.

Goofs:

Continuity: In the scene where Miles is on the horse, he rides with and without a saddle in various shots.

Quotes:

Miles:What shall I sing to my lord from my window? What shall I sing for my lord will not stay? What shall I sing for my lord will not listen? Where shall I go when my lord is away? Whom shall I love when the moon is arisen? Gone is my lord and the grave is his prison...

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Fever Night aka Band of Satanic Outsiders (2009)

Soundtrack:

O Willow Waly

Unique in Film History

All great films engage us to lesser or greater degree: some emotionally, some intellectually -- a few, equally.

No film in history, to my memory, seduces the viewer into actively co-creating the piece as it unreels, as does "The Innocents." Immediately, vividly, and subtly, it arrests then implicates the viewer in every frame.

Its first "image," in fact, is a blank (black) screen -- and the haunting sound of a child's song. Instantly, viewers unconsciously react, emotionally (as to all music), to the beguiling yet off-putting song and the voice. Emotional tension, established immediately.

Yet, one's mind never stops producing thoughts and images. So, without any visual cues from the screen, the haunting song produces images in viewers' own minds -- each no doubt different. Already, then, viewers are seduced into supplying their own mental images and, whether they know it yet or not, have been brilliantly and subliminally placed in the Deborah Kerr role. This, before a single production credit has appeared. We are watching a shadow: a nothing. And our minds demand we fill it with something.

Thus does Jack Clayton's astonishing "The Innocents" begin. Certainly, other films have used the same opening device. But none with "The Innocents'" payoff.

For, as it develops (based on Henry James', "The Turn of the Screw"), "The Innocents'" themes are, "What do you see? What do you believe is true? Is it? Who is 'innocent?' The children? The nanny? You?" The emotional undertow is inescapable, perhaps more so because two-thirds of the trio of protagonists are "children in peril," always a surefire hook.

But "in peril" from what, exactly? Deborah Kerr's possible paranoia / schizophrenia? Ghosts? Or our own powerful, perhaps lurid, imaginings of what may or may not have happened to these children from their deceased and perhaps sexually perverse tutors? The children's memories or imaginings of what did or didn't happen? The film unfolds with some of the most beautiful cinematography in history (Freddie Francis). "The Innocents" requires full-size screening, or at least letterboxing to fully appreciate the visual poetry supporting the suspense.

Jack Clayton's production and direction rank among the finest in screen history.

The miraculous work he pulls from his cast is uniformly jaw-dropping.

Despite Deborah Kerr's ravishing natural beauty, one never recalls even a single performance in which she was "Deobrah Kerr": she was always the character -- whether a nun ("Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison"), an adulterous sexpot ("From Here to Eternity"), a Tennessee Williams underdog ("Night of the Iguana"), a strong-willed soprano-singing teacher ("The King and I") or a romantic comedienne ("An Affair to Remember").

Contrast Kerr's beauty, talent and career with Elizabeth Taylor, say. Equally ravishing, one was always aware of watching Miss Taylor "act." Even in stunt casting, like her Martha in "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" or the debacle of "Cleopatra." Miss Kerr is the real thing. So are Megs Jenkins (Mrs. Grose), Martin Stephens (Miles) and Pamela Franklin (Flora).

The story and filming progressively grow more audacious, until the last heartbreaking sequence between Kerr and young Stephens.

By then, of course, our hearts and minds are so thoroughly complicit in the goings on that the final cry heard on the soundtrack, before we are left again in the blank, black void of our own hearts and imaginings at all we've just lived through, before credits begin to roll, leaves us with perhaps the most haunting of all cinematic experiences.

Why? Because we have made the film as it went along, as fully involved as any character in it -- our own minds contributing all that's unspoken and unseen.

"The Innocents" is the "Citizen Kane" of its genre. And like "Citizen Kane," it transcends genres.

This is an immortal achievement by a team of filmic artists at their peaks. A revelation of what film can be.