"The Innocents" to Air on FXM Friday

[Philippe Cordier]

I don't know if anyone gets the "FXM" network -- I know I don't.

If you do, you'll have the rare opportunity to view the 1961 classic "The Innocents" with Deborah Kerr.  For as long as I've had cable and learned about this movie via this forum, the movie has not aired on any station I get.  Fortunately, I purchased the video, but it is a pan and scan version which severely cuts off some of the scenes.  For example, in one scene, you see one person's nose on one side of the screen and the other person's nose on the other side of the screen.

If anyone watches the FXM showing, I would be interested to hear whether it was presented in wide-screen format.  If so, I envy you -- and advise you to tape it.  According to a multitude of comments on amazon and imdb.com, the widescreen version is practically mandatory for this movie.

Interesting that this should air just when a review of Dan Curtis's "The Turn of the Screw" has appeared on this forum (thanks, Midnite -- haven't had a chance to read it yet though).

"The Innocents" is a filmic "equivalent" of the Henry James ghost novella "The Turn of the Screw" which inspired a couple of the storylines on DS where the children are haunted by the ghosts of Quentin and Beth, for example (and I think a later storyline, too ... ).

I call the movie an "equivalent" or an interpretation since it follows the original rather loosely.  Much closer versions have been made that were also excellent, namely "The Haunting of Helen Walker" for NBC-TV and "The Turn of the Screw" for BBC - PBS.

The movie could be described, I think, as visual poetry with its wealth of nuance and visual symbolism.  The reading of the story is heavy on the psychological overtones but still leaves the essential ambiguity of the original novella.

Sadly, like "The Eye of the Devil" discussed recently, "The Innocents" is not available on DVD.

[Gerard]

Way back when I was in college, a bunch of us would put on plays just for the fun of it.  Any money we made, after expenses, would be donated to charity.  We would secure the use of a gymnasium with a huge, almost fully equipped stage in a local parochial school.  And we would construct the sets ourselves, along with borrowing furniture for props and such, and hit up the Good Will for stuff that could be transformed into costumes.  One play we had a blast doing was Arsenic and Old Lace (I got to play the Boris Karloff character).

And we also did the stage play version of The Innocents.  We researched the play (upon which the Deborah Kerr film was based) and it emphasized more the angle of is this really a haunting, or the imagination of the governess caused by her suppressed Victorian sexual frustrations?  To that end, one had the option of casting the ghosts, or not casting them.  We decided to go ahead and do it for the creep effect, but directed and blocked it so that they did not manifest unless the governess first noticed (or thought she noticed) them.  In other words, they would not pop up behind her.  She would react, and then they would become visible within the shadows or behind a window.  That still allowed one to ponder whether they were real, or just the product of her imagination.  Further, we wanted to capture the atmosphere of the film, so everything was done - sets and costumes - with color schemes of black, white, gray, and if any colors were used, they were very dark, such as a rusty red.  Two high school kids, rather small for their age and very talented, played the two children.  I got to play the ghost of Quint.  Even though I had no lines, it was the most difficult part I ever did.  I had to use facial expressions and body postures, mostly hidden in shadows or behind foggy glass, to emote menace, and well enough for the people in the very last row of folding chairs to see it.  The whole experience was an absolute blast, and we did a very fine job of spooking the audience with our simplistic special effects (disembodied voices of the children echoing throughout the darkened gymnasium, taunting the governess by having the performers speak into a microphone off-stage in a stairwell; wind billowing out the drapes, done by some of us standing on the sides waving huge sheets of cardboard; etc.).  When the horrific climax came, the governess holding the dead body of the boy, crying out in anguish:  "Miles!", the lights fading to black and the curtains closing, the audience just sat there, stunned, unable to applaud until someone finally started to clap.

Oh, those were the fun days!

Gerard

[Philippe Cordier]

Sounds like a great theatre experience, Gerard!  I can believe that that role would be very difficult to play.  I think both Peter Wyngarde ("The Innocents") and Christopher Guard ("The Haunting of Helen Walker") did superb jobs with it.

The first time I saw "The Innocents" I thought it was good but I was ever so slightly disappointed because I knew the book so well and wondered why so many details had been changed, rearranged, or invented for the film.  I thought it was very well done, but departed too much from Henry James.

Having viewed it a second time this past weekend, I must say I was far more impressed overall ... perhaps in part because a few more years have passed since I last read the book and I'm more distant from it now; but perhaps I'm also more open now to the idea of creating a filmic equivalent -- but not a duplicate -- interpreting the story using a completely different medium.  I see the movie as rather a meditation on the novella, a response to the text rather than a scene-by-scene rendering of the text.

I didn't remember that "The Innocents" had been a play (though you may have mentioned this last time around, Gerard ...).  I wonder if the play could have been based upon the film script rather than the other way around.  Truman Capote was the primary author of the film script.

Do you happen to know if the play script is still available?  It's been years since I've used the Dramatists Play Service and am not sure how to look it up.

[Gerard]

I imagine it's (the play script) is still available, Vlad.  We did get ahold of it when we put on the play (this was way back in the 70's).  I remember reading a critic's review of the movie, saying his only problem was including the scene of the governess meeting with the uncle (I think it was an uncle) of the orphaned children before she headed off to the estate, stating that the scene was not included in the play.  So the play did come before the movie (along with the title The Innocents).  The critic felt that it somehow marred the attempt to make the audience decide if the governess was really seeing the ghosts, or if it was a product of her imagination.  I really don't see how, but you know critics.

Gerard

[Philippe Cordier]

I appreciate your further comments, Gerard.  I did some searching and found that the rights to the play "The Innocents" are with Samuel French (not Dramatists Play Service), and I was able to order a copy directly from them very inexpensively.   

I note that the play's author was William Archibald.  I'll be curious to compare it with the movie to see how the two versions differ (in addition to the opening scene, which you point out).

I think it would be a terrific play to produce -- if you had a very, very good actress in the lead.  I think Ms. Kerr had what I imagine to be a more Victorian aspect about her, in her posture and bearing, for example, than Jodi Maye (sp) in the recent BBC production.  Also I thought Ms. Maye (sp) had too much of a deranged air about her that would have been at odds with the James novella.

Remember it was many decades after "The Turn of the Screw" was published before some critic (possibly Edmund Wilson) finally suggested a psychological interpretation of the story.

And there is so much that the actress playing the housekeeper could do with that part as well.  I usually love Diana Rigg, but I thought her performance in that role in the NBC version "The Haunting of Helen Walker" was not one of her best.

Valerie Bertinelli gave an acceptable -- but by no means exceptional -- performance in the lead.

[Gerard]

Ya, Vlad, you found it!  Neat!  I remember seeing a publicity photo in a book taken from the play, but don't ask me who the actresses were, 'cause I don't remember.  Once you get your copy, you should really see about the possibility of having it performed.  If a bunch of 20-year-old college kids using lumber (constructing the staircase was the hardest, but we got our dads with their tools and electric saws to come and do that), cardboard, borrowed furniture, and costumes which consisted of Good Will finds altered into Victorian garb by our mothers and their magical sewing machines, could produce a rendition that left the audiences stunned and creeped, it can be done!

I also enjoyed what I call the "One Day At a Time" (because of Valerie Bertinelli) version of The Turn of the Screw - hardly a classic, but very enjoyable, and it still pops up on the Lifetime Network.  I wonder if they changed the governess from being British to being an American (and a widow to boot, I believe from my faulty memory) because Valerie couldn't do a good British accent.

Gerard

[Philippe Cordier]

Once you get your copy, you should really see about the possibility of having it performed.

If I were still involved with community theatre, I'd push for it.  Thinking about it makes the bug start to itch again!

I also enjoyed what I call the "One Day At a Time" (because of Valerie Bertinelli) version of The Turn of the Screw - hardly a classic, but very enjoyable, and it still pops up on the Lifetime Network.  I wonder if they changed the governess from being British to being an American (and a widow to boot, I believe from my faulty memory) because Valerie couldn't do a good British accent.

I was finally able to tape this off Lifetime.  It's available on video in the U.K., where they kept the title "The Turn of the Screw."

Since "The Haunting of Helen Walker" was made for commercial American television, that alone would have necessitated that the lead character be AMERICAN!!  (You can't expect to attract a mass audience to something that even hints of "Masterpiece Theatre" you know ...)   

This version lost some of the subtely and depth, but it followed the book much more closely than "The Innocents" does -- even with the change of the governess character to an American widow ...  Although that probably undercuts James' intention of the governess as a young, inexperienced girl.

That aspect of "The Innocents" put me off a bit at first, too, since Deborah Kerr was far too old for the part -- though I hasten to say that she pulled it off brilliantly.  But it's strange they didn't re-write the line in the first scene where the "Uncle" says "this is your first position, isn't it," which would be more appropriate to the young girl of the original story rather than a lovely but middle-aged Deborah Kerr.