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The Supernatural

The Innocents begins with a voice that sounds like that of a small girl's singing "Oh Willow Waly". While the titles roll, a pair of quivering hands nervously prays on the side of the screen while we hear a panicky voice off screen... ummm... panicking. Eventually, Miss Giddens' decidedly upset face comes onto the edge of the screen and she whispers "all I want to do is save the children, not destroy them." She continues to ruminate regarding the children for a while then we dissolve to her face again. This time she's looking chipper and cheery.

Miss Giddens {Deborah Kerr} is applying for the job of governess to two small children named Miles and Flora and their uncle {Michael Redgrave} seems to think she's the woman for the job. For several minutes we discuss the kids and Miss Gidden's responsibilities and poor Miss Jessel {Clytie Jessop}, the children's previous governess. Miss Jessel, it would seem, has died.

Cut to a carriage, bearing Miss Giddens, as it rolls down a country road. As we reach the gates of the house, Miss Giddens politely inquires as to whether it would be acceptable if she walked the rest of the way. The driver consents to this and Miss Giddens walks through the huge yard while, off in the distance, someone calls "Flora". Near a brook, we run into a very small, very polite, little girl named Flora {Pamela Franklin} who introduces us to Rupert, her pet tortoise and leads us down the path to the huge, old house.

At the house, we meet Miss Grose {Megs Jenkins}, the housekeeper, who shows us to the sitting room, makes us a cup of tea and sends Flora outside to get rid of Rupert, the filthy tortoise. When Miss Grose has gone off to go about her housekeeping, little Flora sneaks back in to the room, tortoise in hand, and feeds Rupert some of her new nanny's cake. Miss Giddens quickly begins to sense something odd about these people. Nothing serious, mind you; just a minor inconsistency here and there.

Miss Giddens is given a bed in Flora's room and has a nightmare on her first evening in the house. The next day an oddly curious, little, Flora reads our mail with us and we get a letter from Miles' school telling us that he's been expelled; "he's an injury to the others". Not surprisingly, Miss Giddens finds this to be somewhat alarming. The next morning we meet a cheery, little, Miles at the train station. Miles deftly avoids any questions she asks him regarding his problems at school, but seems to be a simply lovely child aside from that. That night, Miles cries when Miss Giddens resurrects the subjects of school and his uncle.

The next morning, Miss Giddens has a very odd, dream-like, experience, in which she sees a man standing in a tower on the main house. When she climbs the staircase to see just who might be lurking about, she finds only Miles there playing with the pigeons and, he says he's not seen anyone. A bit later, Miss Giddens panics when Miles gives an "expedition" on his horse and a game of hide and seek, before bedtime, gets decidedly strange when Miss Giddens sees a man who fits the description of the family's gardener wandering about behind the house.

The children just laugh when Miss Grose tells her that Quint, the gardener, is dead, but the new nanny just doesn't seem to be all that amused. Miss Giddens soon finds out that these children aren't all that they seem to be, that there's much more to be told about Quint and Miss Jessel than anyone is telling and "something secret and whispery and indecent" is afoot.

This is a classic, Victorian, ghost story, done in exquisite shades of grey with wonderful cinematography that makes full use of the widescreen format and would, in itself, make a perfect excuse to pay the extra money for that new, top of the line, widescreen television. {If you need to convince someone, this would be a movie to do it with.} This has the same magical image quality that Jean Epstein manages in The Fall of the House of Usher though this is many years later and benefits greatly from the advances in technology as well as the filmmaker's craft. Despite the fact that it's black and white, it could easily compete with any film made today in terms of image quality.

It will be obvious that this is one of the places that the best of modern horror has borrowed from. Still, The Innocents is much better than most of what it's inspired. The dialogue has a lovely, poetic, old English sensibility to it that fits the content and atmosphere perfectly. The movie is masterfully made with some beautiful sound effects and film work. Kerr's performance is wonderful, Jenkins isn't bad, she's an entirely appropriate character actress, Franklin delivers a delightfully twisted Flora and Stephens as Miles... well, Miles is simply a very strange young man.