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This film was suggested by our member Adriana Díaz Enciso, who writes: 'A beautiful and terrifying film inspired by Henry James’ The Turn of the Screw. I think it would delight The Garden Cinema’s audience, and would be a warning against watching any of the many other crass film and TV “adaptations” of that great novel. Clayton and the screenplay authors (Truman Capote, William Archibald, John Mortimer) showed a profound understanding of the book, in all its subtlety, that is utterly absent in all later adaptations.'
This genuinely frightening, exquisitely made supernatural gothic stars Deborah Kerr as an emotionally fragile governess who comes to suspect that there is something very, very wrong with her precocious new charges. A psychosexually intensified adaptation of Henry James’s classic The Turn of the Screw, cowritten by Truman Capote and directed by Jack Clayton, The Innocents is a triumph of narrative economy and technical expressiveness, from its chilling sound design to the stygian depths of its widescreen cinematography by Freddie Francis.
Cast:
Deborah Kerr, Peter Wyngarde, Megs Jenkins, Michael Redgrave