The Innocents :: Movie Review

'The best ghost movie I've ever seen'
~ Pauline Kael

Jack Clayton's celebrated screen adaptation of Henry James's The Turn of the Screw (1898) is a brilliant exercise in psychological horror. Impressionable and repressed governess Miss Giddens (Deborah Kerr) agrees to tutor two orphaned children, Miles and Flora. On arrival at Bly House (Sheffield Park House, near Uckfield, Sussex), she becomes convinced that the children are possessed by the perverse spirits of former governess Miss Jessel and her Heathcliffe-like lover Quint (Peter Wyngarde), who both met with mysterious deaths.

The film's sinister atmosphere is carefully created - not through shock tactics, but through its cinematography, soundtrack, and decor: Freddie Francis' beautiful CinemaScope photography, with its eerily indistinct long shots and mysterious manifestations at the edges of the frame; an evocative and spooky soundtrack; and the grand yet decaying Bly House.

Deborah Kerr gives the performance of her career and makes The Innocents an intensely unsettling experience. Are the ghosts the products of Miss Giddens' fevered imagination and emotional immaturity, or a displacement of her shock at the sexually precocious behaviour of ten-year-old Miles? Is she the protector or the corrupter?

The Deborah Kerr kiss remains one of the most disturbing moments in cinema history

Now widely considered to be one of the greatest of all ghost stories on film, The Innocents continues to inspire today's 'haunted house' movies, most notably The Others (Alejandro Amenbar, 2001).

The Innocents :: UK Dvd Special Features

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Filmed introduction and commentary with Professor Christopher Frayling
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Original trailer for The Innocents
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The Bespoke Overcoat (Jack Clayton, 1955, 33 mins) - Jack Clayton's first film as director - an Oscar and BAFTA award-winning short starring Alfie Bass and David Kossoff
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Stills gallery including original costume designs, publicity posters, press books and production pictures
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Booklet including film notes by Jeremy Dyson (The League of Gentlemen)
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Gallery :: UK Dvd

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