The Innocents is a 1961 gothic psychological horror film directed and produced by Jack Clayton, and starring Deborah Kerr, Michael Redgrave, and Megs Jenkins. Based on the 1898 novella The Turn of the Screw by the novelist Henry James, the screenplay was adapted by William Archibald and Truman Capote, who used Archibald's own 1950 stage play—also titled The Innocents—as a primary source text. Its plot follows a governess who watches over two children and comes to fear that their large estate is haunted by ghosts and that the children are being possessed.
Archibald's original screenplay for The Innocents was based on the premise that the paranormal events depicted were legitimate. Displeased with Archibald's take on the material, director Jack Clayton appointed American writer Truman Capote to rework the script. Capote's rewrites incorporated psychological themes, resulting in a final work that suggests other alternatives to the plot. Filming took place partly on location at the Gothic mansion of Sheffield Park in Sussex, with additional shoots occurring at Shepperton Studios in Surrey. Shot in CinemaScope, The Innocents incorporated bold minimal lighting as well as deep focus, employed by cinematographer Freddie Francis to achieve a distinctive—and sometimes claustrophobic—atmosphere. The film also pioneered the use of synthesised electronic sound created by Daphne Oram. Clayton was dissatisfied with the original score of the movie by French composer Georges Auric and requested some alteration. However, because Auric was not available due to health problems, Clayton turned to W. Lambert Williamson.
The Innocents received international distribution from the American film studio 20th Century Fox, and received its London premiere on 24 November 1961; all to positive critical reviews. It was released in the United States the following month on 15 December in Los Angeles and Christmas Day in New York City. The psychological underpinnings of the film's screenplay have resulted in it being the subject of numerous critical and scholarly essays, particularly in the area of film theory. It was selected by The Guardian as one of the 25 best horror films ever made.
A prequel to the story, The Nightcomers, starring Marlon Brando and Stephanie Beacham, was released in 1971, though to commercial disappointment.
Plot Miss Giddens applies for her first job as a governess. The wealthy bachelor uncle who interviews her is unconcerned with her lack of experience. He values his freedom to travel and socialise and unabashedly confesses that he has "no room, mentally or emotionally" for his niece and nephew. They were orphaned and left in his care as infants, and he keeps them at Bly, his large country estate. The previous governess, Mary Jessel, died suddenly less than a year earlier. All he cares about is that Miss Giddens accept full responsibility for the children, never troubling him with whatever problems may arise.
At Bly, Miss Giddens is instantly taken with Flora, the niece. She also forges a friendship with Mrs Grose, the kindly housekeeper. The boy, Miles, is away at boarding school, but soon returns to Bly after being expelled for being a "bad influence" on his peers. Mrs Grose says she cannot imagine Miles misbehaving, and when Miss Giddens meets the boy herself, she too thinks his teachers must have exaggerated. He seems charming and mature—though perhaps too mature, with flirtatious flattery towards his governess.
Miss Giddens soon grows disturbed by the children's occasional odd behaviours and secretiveness, and is bothered by disembodied voices and apparitions of a man and woman she witnesses in the house and grounds, whom Mrs Grose identifies from their descriptions as Miss Jessel and the uncle's valet, Peter Quint, also dead. Mrs Grose also reluctantly reveals that the couple had been in an abusive romantic relationship. Miss Giddens concludes that the ghosts of Quint and Miss Jessel possess the bodies of the children so they can physically continue their relationship. She is determined to rescue them from this possession, first planning to break her promise to their uncle and write to him, but she is thwarted by a weeping apparition of Miss Jessel in the schoolroom. She then sends Mrs Grose and Flora to him in London.
Left alone with Miles, Miss Giddens presses him to talk about the ghosts, and about why he was expelled from school. Initially, Miles is glib and evasive, but he eventually admits that he frightened the other boys with violence and vulgar language. She enjoins him to say who taught him this language and behaviour. Miles suddenly begins yelling obscene insults and laughing maniacally, and Quint's face appears in the window behind him, joining in the boy's laughter. Miles then runs outside; Miss Giddens follows, begging him to reveal the name of his influence. Quint appears on a hedge nearby, but Miles does not seem to see him. Miles finally shouts Quint's name, and Quint waves his hand. Miles grows still and falls to the ground. Miss Giddens cradles him and assures him that he is free. She then realises that Miles is dead. Sobbing, she leans over him and kisses him on the lips.
Cast
Analysis The Innocents has received attention from academics and specialists in film theory, beginning with the literary theorist Edmund Wilson, who wrote extensively on the film's source novella, insisting that the supernatural phenomena were in fact the product of Miss Giddens' own sexual repression. According to literary scholar Leonard Orr, of the many adaptations of James's work, The Innocents has received the largest amount of critical attention.
Film scholar David J. Hogan reiterated the film's underlying themes of sexual repression becoming the focus of supernatural activity, and compared elements of the film to Robert Wise's The Haunting (1963), based on The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson. Hogan also interprets the film's final scene as "a perverse variation on the Sleeping Beauty story, as Kerr symbolically liberates the boy from a presumed possession with a kiss after he has fainted."
In the book Fifty Classic British Films, 1932-1982: A Pictorial Record (2013), film writer Anthony Slide noted: "Through the use of shadows, oblique camera angles, and an atmospheric soundtrack, Jack Clayton not only captured the horror of James's story, but also its deeper sadness—the children's isolation from the real world, the governess' problematic sexuality, and the curiously pitiful nature of the former governess, Miss Jessel."
Production Development The original screenplay for The Innocents was adapted by playwright William Archibald from his 1950 play of the same name, which itself was based on Henry James's novella The Turn of the Screw. In both his stage and screen adaptations, Archibald wrote under the assumption that the supernatural experiences of Miss Giddens were real, and that the ghosts she encountered were legitimate entities as opposed to figments of her imagination (a possibility left unresolved in James's original work). Archibald's interpretation of the source material was made clear in a denouement in the original draft of the script, which:
Director Jack Clayton envisioned a more ambiguous conclusion for the film: "My original interest in the story was in the fact that one could tell it from a completely different point of view," he said. "In other words–evil was alive in the mind of the governess and in fact she more or less creates the situation. Now this was long before I read the notes on Henry James and found that somebody else also imagines that Henry James wrote it this way—sort of almost Freudian hallucinations the governess had."
Clayton was ultimately unhappy with Archibald's screenplay due to their conflicting interpretations of the material, and asked American writer Truman Capote (whom he had met while working on Beat the Devil) to rework Archibald's script. At the time, Capote was in the middle of writing In Cold Blood; however, because he was a fan of the James novella, he agreed, and took a three-week hiatus to rewrite the screenplay. Capote introduced the Freudian symbolism that is prominently highlighted in the relationships and visual compositions of the film, with implications that the supernatural phenomena experienced by Miss Giddens are a result of her own sexual repression and paranoias rather than legitimate paranormal experiences. Clayton later brought in writer John Mortimer to give the dialogue a "Victorian" polish. Clayton intended to maintain a sense of claustrophobia and, at the same time, open up the play, which took place entirely in the drawing room of the house. Clayton saw the house as one of the characters in the film and used it as such to highlight certain scenes.
Cultural critic Christopher Frayling attributes approximately 90% of the film's script as it appears on the screen to Capote (The final credits attribute the screenplay to Archibald and Capote, with Mortimer receiving credit for "Additional Scenes and Dialogue"). Frayling also notes a Southern Gothic feel present in Capote's script alterations – particularly with the governess' repressed erotic sensibility counterpointed by shots of lush and decaying plants and rapacious insect life. Director Clayton, though, chose to downplay this aspect in the finished film, to preserve the ambiguity between the ghost story and Freudian element.
An unreliable narrator was originally intended to feature in the narrative and the film was to open with a funeral scene. There are stills of the scene that circulated at the time, but Clayton ultimately elected to open the film with darkness, a song sung by a little girl, and the image of Kerr's hands that are clasped in prayer, with her rosary between her fingers, as she murmurs and sobs. Gradually Kerr's face is highlighted. According to film scholar Frayling, the opening scene creates a sense of intimacy and, perhaps, trust that the governess should be trusted, but the use of darkness surrounding her suggests that it is possible that the story that follows could be nothing more than in her own mind – isolated and creating its own supernatural world.
Casting Deborah Kerr was cast in the lead role of Miss Giddens at the counsel of the film's studio and distributor, 20th Century Fox, despite the fact that the governess character in James's original work was twenty years old (Kerr was forty at the time). On discussing the part with Clayton, Kerr recalled: "I remember asking Jack what he wanted me to stress in playing the part, and he replied, "You play it the way you feel, but don't forget the ambiguity!" So I tried the very nervous tight-rope between sanity and insanity, and left the audience to exercise its intelligence." Kerr's role in the film is significant, as she appears onscreen in approximately 95 minutes of the film's 99 minute runtime. She was paid US$400,000 for her work in the film.
For the roles of the children, Clayton cast eleven-year-old Pamela Franklin (in her film debut) as Flora, and Martin Stephens as her brother, Miles; Stephens had featured in the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer horror film Village of the Damned (1960). Australian-born actress Clytie Jessop was cast as the spectral Miss Jessel (also in her film debut), while Peter Wyngarde was cast in the role of Quint, Miss Jessel's illicit lover. Though he receives top billing, Michael Redgrave appears only in the beginning of the film in a cameo role as the children's uncle.