Dir. Jack Clayton, 1961, UK, 100 mins
Cast: Deborah Kerr, Michael Redgrave, Megs Jenkins
Review by Mike Bartlett
This week sees the re-release of the film I would nominate as the scariest ever made. Based on the Henry James novella The Turn of the Screw, it concerns a nervous, impressionable governess (Deborah Kerr in her finest role) assigned to look after two children in a lofty, old country mansion. They’re a couple of spoilt brats out to make her life misery – or are they? Could it be that they’re possessed by the evil spirits of their former housekeepers, two lovers playing out a deadly romance from beyond the grave? The film couldn’t hope to capture the psychological acuity of James’ writing and it doesn’t try to. But Kerr’s performance is so subtle that the audience is kept guessing as to whether she is the victim, or through her own paranoia, the tormentor of these children.
The real focus of the movie, though, is on the atmosphere of the house and its ghostly inhabitants. Here, Freddie Francis’s beautiful, elegant black-and-white photography comes into its own, creating a phantom stage where a spook can wander across a corridor in front of you and seem as solid as the walls. Director Jack Clayton didn’t enjoy much of an illustrious career after this, his debut feature, but the confidence with which he handles the material means that his name will forever deserve a special footnote in the annals of English film. The set-piece scares – the face at the window, the lady in the lake – stand comparison with the best in horror cinema. It forms a pair with another great ‘60s ghost movie, Robert Wise’s The Haunting (1963, also made in England), and both are notable for the way they turn their location into a brooding character of its own and for the way they leave their chill lingering at the end of the film – Deborah Kerr whispering, “The children, the children…”
It’s an odd decision to release this at the height of summer (well, what passes for summer). This is a movie for a blustery November night or to enjoy before a roaring fire on Christmas Eve. But it’s not available on DVD, so catch it now. After all, it’s that rare beast – an English masterpiece.
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