Movie – The Innocents

 


Movie – The Innocents
Score : 8/10 (provisional)
Year :  1961
Director: Jack Clayton
Country : USA
Language : English
Duration: 1h40
Writers: Henry James (novel) ; John Mortimer (additional scenes and dialogues)
Wiliam Archibald & Truman Capote (screenplay)

 I love that this movie can be seen from different points of view, as it has a basic layer of ''horror movie' and another more philosophical, metaphorical aspect which can be discusses after watching.
This is Deborah Kerr's best performance (she said so herself), as Miss Giddens, a  governess watching over two children and who slowly starts to suspect that the house and grounds around them all are haunted.

I've seen several movies with Deborah, and she seems particularly attracted to strong and maternal roles, even (and maybe especially) when there is a risk in taking the part as there were at least 2 controversial scenes in this movie and which I won't spoil... 

All I'm going to say that she was very convincing in this leading role, and her performance outstanding as she expressed her wonder, and growing fear. 

The majority of the lead characters are women : Kerr is indeed surrounded by other women employed at the estate. Most of the dialogues, however, are with the two children : Flora (Pamela Franklin) and Miles (Martin Stephens).

The two kids played their respective parts very aptly, and the entire plot is eerie and creepy, yet not all questions are answered, leaving you & me, the viewers, to interpret the events.

The costuming, as far as can be appreciated in b&w, seemed quite elegant and Kerr's big, puffy Victorian dresses had a life of their own...  

The cinematography was interesting, and at moments offered very original shots, more or less successfully. The lighting is particularly good, with strong contrasts. 

The intro and outro are creepy, unique and very well made with the only discernible tunes in the movie. 


Intelligently written dialogues and certain scenes are full of innuendos and the entire movie is a very mature story. Again, like I said above, it also incorporates certain metaphorical hidden levels which I don't want to discuss here, but ''in person''...

The score was very minimal, making the movie a very dialogue oriented one, except for a couple 1960's shrill sound effects which sounded, unfortunately, quite awful on our bad copy. I'll be able to better comment on this part once we get our hand on a more decent transfer - possibly the bluray edition I saw on amazon. 

Until then, I give this movie a 7 or 8*, as I disliked:

Said shrill moments, including a very displeasing tantrum screaming scene which dragged on a bit too long ;

A key scene with a dead bird which I avoided watching 

The good aspects do outweigh the bad ones, I do have to admit. I seldom watch horror movies because most of them are quite gory, bloody and have a lot more violence that I can cope with. This one relies more on psychological horror, show little, imply a lot more.  Actually, I believe that I might raise to 9* once I see it properly... 

To be continued... (it could take a long while, though)

Small update : my review of Henry James' turn of the screw, on which this movie is based