IMDb plot summary: A young governess for two children becomes convinced that the house and grounds are haunted.
Directed by Jack Clayton. Starring Deborah Kerr, Peter Wyngarde, Megs Jenkins, and Michael Redgrave.
This is apparently based on the Henry James novella The Turn of the Screw, which I knew absolutely nothing about going into this -- had no idea it had ghosts in it at all. Apparently it's fairly ambiguous whether the ghosts exist or are manifestations of the protagonist's sexual repression, and various adaptations tend to lean to one side or the other. This one plays a little bit with both possibilities, but from the beginning, it becomes clear that this woman is ill-equipped to deal with the problem of a haunting. She pulls her confident solutions out of thin air, and a speech she gives in the latter half of the film about being determined to help people even if it hurts them it gave me chills. The plot of the movie, especially when she learns how the haunting affects the other occupants of the house, is very unsettling, possibly made even more so by 1960s restrictions on how explicitly adult themes could be discussed, which means that it becomes unclear what has and has not happened and creates an atmosphere rife with paranoia. The more I sit with this movie, the more I like it.
How it entered my Flickchart:
The Innocents > The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected)
The Innocents > Queen of Katwe
The Innocents > Revengers Tragedy
The Innocents < Jerry Maguire
The Innocents < Ernest & Celestine
The Innocents < Inglourious Basterds
The Innocents < The Edge of Seventeen
The Innocents > The Bride Wore Black
The Innocents < Shutter Island
The Innocents < Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)
The Innocents > Her
The Innocents < The Devil's Backbone
Final spot: #388 out of 3227, or 88%.
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