My dear Monsieur Chariot, what an apt opencall post for your first post since your large project has been underway. I'll see if I can track down "The Innocents" as I have yet to see it (although my wife has seen it). Welcome back!

M'sieu, it's good to see you again.

Movies that you feature always seem to end up on my Netflix list. Especialemment those with Isabelle Huppert.

You missed a conversation about "Ma Mere", which I think is horrifying even though it is not true Horror.

I hope your project went well! Welcome back.

My dear M.Chariot, welcome home. Although I am pleased as punch to have you back, I have to admit I had started a horror movie list earlier in the day but got distracted by, aghast, work I had to do (often I am called upon to rewrite the letters written by non-writers in my husband's company sans pay or glory) but I digress. As I was just returning to my list, I quickly checked Open Salon and found your post. So I'll add this portion of mine:

• “The Innocents.” Based on Henry James’ The Turn of the Screw and expertly acted by the wonderful Deborah Kerr, this movie grows goosebumps from the very start. The children in this film are downright creepy, sexually precocious, and, oh yeah, possessed or at least influenced by the former (and dead) valet and governess. If you’ve never seen it, add it to that queue; if you have, it deserves a re-watching.

Oh, well, it's better to have you back than to finish what has turned out to be an interminable post. It's supposed to be fun, right?

Monsieur! Welcome back!

I agree with you about the marvelous actress Deborah Kerr.

Have you seen The Nightcomers with Marlon Brando and Stephanie Beacham? It's what would be called today a "prequel."

In The Nightcomers (1972, produced and directed by Michael Winner) the children are still alive, and Brando plays the gardener Quint who exerts an unhealthy influence and them and their previous governess (Deborah Kerr's unfortunate predecessor).

I haven't seen it, and I doubt it's the equal of Henry James, but there was an article on it in the May 2005 issue of Cinema Retro. (Cinema Retro has a very interesting website.)

Beinvenue, Monsier! I loved the review, but sadly, will skip the movie. These kinds of movies freak me out and make me lose sleep, somethign I unfortunately badly need. Please do not leave us agains so long, my dear.

I searched direcTV and it's on net Wednesday morning at 7:30 am, FMC (I think that's Fox Movie Channel). I think I'll wait until later in the day to watch it.

I haven't seen the film, but the story by Henry James was very compelling. And I've seen it done as a play, too.

Sounds like the film goes a bit further than the original. Maybe it's on Netflix.

Bonsoir, mes amis! How nice of everyone to visit this evening. To entertain, I submit a song sung by the children in "The Innocents":

What shall I sing to my lord from my window?
What shall I sing for my lord will not stay?
What shall I sing for my lord will not listen?
Where shall I go when my lord is away?
Whom shall I love when the moon is arisen?
Gone is my lord and the grave is his prison.
What shall I say when my lord comes a calling?
What shall I say when he knocks on my door?
What shall I say when his feet enter softly?
Leaving the marks of his grave on my floor.
Enter my lord.
Come from your prison.
Come from your grave, for the moon is arisen.
Welcome, my lord.

Welcome home. As you can see, you have inspired my new name. I like it. Hope you do.

welcome back! This film sounds rentable?

sorry- meant to say the film sounds great and intend to rent

Holla Peré Ubu!

Of all the adaptations out there I think "The Innocents" is the best. Don't rent "The Others" with Nicole Kidman - just don't ok?

In terms of straight lit "Turn Of The Screw" has to be in my top five favorite novellas. Hardly a year goes by when I don't read it at least once just to drive me batty. Is Miss Jessel actually going through the haunting or is she just crazy. I simply love how the events can be skewed 180º depending upon who you want to believe.

correction:
Miss Jessel is one of the ghosts.
The nutty governess is unnamed
where is my head?

I watched "the Innocents".

Do you think the governess went crazy and killed the boy or was there really a possession/exorcism gone bad?

My dear Mme Priddy, that is the beauty Capote's screenplay: it can be interpreted, at the end, via a number of viewpoints. If one only sees the story one way, it probably says more about you than it does about "The Innocents".

Monsieur Chariot, I just checked back into this thread because I saw you'd commented, and I'd missed your posting that chilling song...it does in many ways correspond to how we all feel when you've left us, but it's unnerving to read nonetheless.

Deborah Kerr gives one of her finest performance as the repressed spinster in this adaptation of the Henry James novella "The Turn of the Screw." Ingrid Bergman once tried it but she brought a robustness to the role that didn't quite fit. Kerr's interpretation, like the film itself full of light and dark, to date is definitive, and now we can see it on a DVD that definitely is not. A pity, too, because some of the principals are alive and could have enlivened this poorly produced disc, one that cries for a commentary. The only "extras" are a trailer, a bad pan-and-scan version and other film promos.

So dominating is Kerr's presence that she is able to hold the screen while sharing it with two children (no mean feat) who are charming actors, Martin Stephens and Pamela Franklin. Their governess learns that the "sprits" of her dead predecessor and a groundskeeper seek to reclaim the children. As their uncle, Michael Redgrave's cameo opens the film. In other support, Megs Jenkins dusts off the housekeeper with aplomb. Is the governess hallucinating or is the horror real? This ambiguity ranks this ghost story right up there with "The Haunting" and "The Uninvited."

The anticipated release of this DVD came just as Universal announces another turn of the screw, this one a contemporary remake called "The Turning" in which the governess becomes an estate caretaker. It will be made by the gentleman who gave us recent remakes of "House of Wax" and "The Blob." If "The Innocents" doesn't scare you, that news should. This is one of the classiest and most subtle ghost stories ever written. It's the very antithesis of the blood-and-gore movie shockers being promoted on this disc.

William Archibald adapted it for the stage and Truman Capote helped midwife it to film. Given the overt Freudianism and covert pedophilia that quicken their script, it is odd to find a key moment missing on DVD, one in which the boy plants a lip-to-lip lover's kiss on the governess. You wonder what other "modifications" (as the full-screen version warns) have been made. Jack Clayton directed and Freddie Francis photographed it in widescreen black-and-white ill-served in this transfer. You'd do well to wait for the special edition. Surely there will be one.

My dear Monsieur Artifact ~

Thank you for your marvelous comment, and for expanding the pleasure I take in this fascinating film. I am so happy to discover a fellow fan of the genre!

I think I might have seen some of this....good review