The Innocents
Short description
The Innocents follows Miss Giddens, a young woman from a religious background who is hired by a wealthy London lawyer to look after his niece and nephew, Flora and Miles, at his country estate, Bly. Their guardian shows little interest in the children and leaves their upbringing entirely to her. The girl seems sweet and well-mannered, and Miles likewise charms her when he returns early from boarding school, though she senses the children are keeping something from her. She learns that a former governess, Miss Jessel, and the estate's valet, Peter Quint, both died not long before, and she begins seeing figures around the house and grounds that no one else appears to notice, coming to believe the dead have some hold over the children. The film is based on Henry James's novella The Turn of the Screw.
Jack Clayton directed and produced, working from a screenplay by Truman Capote and William Archibald. It was the first of the three films listed as his directorial work, ahead of The Great Gatsby and Something Wicked This Way Comes. Deborah Kerr plays Miss Giddens, with Peter Wyngarde as Quint, Megs Jenkins as Mrs. Grose, Michael Redgrave as the uncle, and Martin Stephens and Pamela Franklin as the children.
Released in November 1961, the British production runs 100 minutes. On IMDb it holds 7.7/10 from around 36,000 votes, and on TMDB 7.5/10 from roughly 687 votes, showing a widely seen film with durable audience approval. A critics' rating of 9/10 from 57 reviews places it clearly above those viewer scores.
What's left behind the scenes
- To protect the children involved in the filming, director and producer Jack Clayton (1921-1995) ordered that the full script not be shown to them. The children only received limited information about the scenes they were to play in the morning before filming.
- In the "cursed video" from the film "The Ring" (2002), one can make out barely audible singing. This is a song from this film.
- To participate in writing the screenplay for this film, Truman Capote took a break from working on his novel "In Cold Blood" (1965).
- Cinematographer Freddie Francis (1917-2007) achieved the image contrast by using a large number of powerful lights. They produced light so bright that actress Deborah Kerr (1921-2007) wore sunglasses between takes.
- When Deborah Kerr's character first arrives at the estate, it is a bright sunny day. To emphasize this, Freddie Francis even ordered some of the trees to be painted in lighter tones.
- When the ghost of Peter Quint appears in the window, actor Peter Wingard (1927-2018) was placed on a trolley, which was then simply rolled up to the window and then rolled back again.
Similar movies
Auditions in India
Casting calls in USA
Castingi w Polsce
Кастинги в Україні
