The Innocents, along with The Haunting (1963), is one of those movies I worry about returning to for fear it will not inspire in me the same wonderful feeling of looming terror I got from first viewing. I'm glad to say it holds up.

For a horror flick, The Innocents is pretty languid. It is an adaptation of  the Broadway play of the same name by William Archibald, which is turn was an adaptation of Henry James's short novel, The Turn of The Screw.  Truman Capote reworked much of the play into the screenplay for the film, which may explain its Gothic slowness. Set in an English country estate in the late 19th century, the story is of a novice governess whose first assignment is to care for -- almost wholly unsupervised -- the young niece and nephew of a London playboy (Michael Redgrave), who makes it charmingly clear that he is not interested in country family life. He hires Miss Giddens, not because she is especially (or demonstrably qualified) but because she agrees not to pester him with details or responsibilities, or bring up the last governess's death to young Flora; they were very close. Now, off you go.

Deborah Kerr plays Miss Giddens, the nervous, inexperienced governess. There is an anxiety about Miss Giddens that doesn't quite let up. Maybe it's just nerves about working for the first time and so very far from home. Maybe it's something else. When she meets little Flora (the luminous Pamela Franklin) in the garden of the gorgeous estate playing with her turtle, Rupert, Giddens is completely won over. The house is large and lovely; the housekeeper, Mrs. Grose (Megs Jenkins), is friendly and helpful; the boy, Miles (British scary kid staple, Martin Stephens), is away at school and will be home for the holidays. 

So far so good.

Except Flora keeps saying the Miles will be coming home soon (it's nowhere near the holidays). And it thunders a lot. And those gorgeous white roses keep shedding their petals no matter how freshly they've been cut. And Miss Giddens can't seem to get a good night's sleep, what with the dreams and all. And who was that man standing in the dovecote high in the tower?

Turns out Flora had correctly predicted Miles's imminent return, because he is on is way home after having been expelled from his boarding school for being a "corrupting influence." Miss Giddens can't imagine why, because he is such a lovely, agreeable boy, who very much loves his sister. 

Meanwhile, Miss Giddens is beginning to find Flora's continual humming of a sad song and her frequent wandering off to the lake to be troubling. One day, Miss Giddens sees a dark-eyed figure of a woman standing in the distant reeds by the lake. She hounds Mrs. Grose for more information about Miss Jessel, the children's last governess. Turns out the former (dead) governess had developed a tragic attachment to the uncle's former (also dead) valet, Peter Quint (played in light and shadow by Peter Wyngarde). After Quint met his end by slipping on some ice after a drunken night out, Miss Jessel (played at a terrifying distance by Clytie Jessop), went mad and drowned herself in the lake. Quint had been cruel to everyone, especially Miss Jessel, but young Miles doted on him.

With Miles back at home, the children start to act strangely, whispering to one another, and playing benign if slightly off-putting tricks on poor Miss Giddens, who keeps seeing Quint and Miss Jessel all over the place. Miss Giddens is convinced that their spirits are possessing the children and making them behave unnaturally close (if you know what I mean). She, in turn, behaves suspiciously toward the children all the time now and comes to believe that the youngsters can only be saved if they confess to being possessed.* Poor Mrs. Grose doesn't know what to think.

It doesn't end well. Let's just say that young Pamela Franklin was a convincing little screamer.

We are never quite sure whether Miss Giddens is going mad or if the spirits are indeed haunting the children. The film is replete with psycho-sexual undertones, but are they other-worldly in origin or the imaginings of a woman who is slowly unraveling? The director, Jack Clayton, leaves it deliberately ambiguous. 

The Innocents can feel a bit plodding and overwrought at times, but the cinematography is so breathtaking, and the haunting so uncertain, that you couldn't spend a more compelling, creepier hour and a half. Best of all, it can be watched for free on YouTube (in one go with Portuguese subtitles, or in pieces without), and does not suffer at all from a small screen viewing.

Set in an English seaside hotel in the off-season, Separate Tables is a character study of the people who live there year-round. There's shy, spinster Sybil (Deborah Kerr) and her horrible, controlling mother, Mrs. Railton-Bell (Gladys Cooper, the old stinker); blustering, bloviating, boring Major Pollock (David Niven), who can't seem to get his own facts straight; young peripheral couple Charles (Rod Taylor) and Jean (Audrey Dalton); and the weirdest love triangle ever, ex-spouses Ann (Rita Hayworth) and John (Burt Lancaster) and his  new love interest, hotel owner, sensible Miss Cooper (Wendy Hiller.) 

There's a lot going on for such a small place. Mrs. Railton-Bell and her much nicer friend, Gladys (Cathleen Nesbitt) rule the roost, observing and commenting on everything. Somehow they haven't noticed that Miss Cooper and handsome, often-drunk American, John, are secretly engaged. But then again, Miss Cooper isn't completely convinced that engagement is what they've got. With the arrival out of nowhere of glamorous, bejeweled ex-wife, Ann, John's passion is ignited. Turns out that passion is hate, because before their divorce, John tried to kill Ann, spent some time in prison for it, and is now reinventing himself at Miss Cooper's. What is Ann doing there now, anyway? Why, she's engaged to an English guy and is there to meet his family.

Or is she?

And speaking of secrets, Major Pollock has been skulking around trying to steal people's newspapers, because there's something in there he doesn't want anyone to see, least of all that battleaxe, Lady Railton-Bell. Alas, he is unsuccessful, and Mrs. R-B not only learns that Major Pollock has been arrested and tried for indecent behavior in movie theaters, but he has been lying about his background, rank and war record. He was only a lieutenant stationed in a supply depot in the West Indies and not a major in North Africa fighting Rommel, as he's been claiming (or declaiming, wot wot?).

Mrs. R-B can't WAIT to spill the beans to her fellow residents and get the man ejected from the hotel. It's just icing on the cake that her daughter Sybil, who is not-so-secretly in love with Major Pollock, will be crushed by the news. Pretending to protect her from the scandal, Mrs. R-B goads Sybil into begging for the news then gleefully breaks her heart. Sybil's mother takes a vote among the other residents to See What's to Be Done. Mr. Fowler, the ex-headmaster, has always been suspicious of some of the Major's claims and considers him somewhat pathetic, but he doesn't think lax moral behavior should be tolerated -- on principle, The hotel lesbian, Miss Meacham (May Hallatt), doesn't give a damn, and Burt Lancaster is, of course, against expelling the Major. Sadly, Gladys and Sybil always do what Mrs. R-B says, so the vote comes out against the man. 

As Mrs. R-B skips off to strong-arm Miss Cooper into giving the Major the boot, we learn a lot more about Ann and John and why their marriage broke up. He wanted children; she wanted a career. He resented her ambitions and she froze him out of the bedroom. So he tried to kill her, as you do. But she's still in love with him, she says, and he can't stop himself. Miss Cooper, of course, has sized up the situation and decides to take a wait-and-see attitude. She waits. She sees.

Major Pollock, meanwhile, runs into a distraught Sybil, who tells him the cat is out of the bag and how could he and what's wrong with him and oh, what will become of him? Deborah Kerr is a bit overwrought as the stunted, frustrated, old maid daughter, but Gladys Cooper did exactly the same thing to Bette Davis in Now, Voyager, and that resulted in elaborate scrimshaw, so it can be forgiven. David Niven, on the other hand, is very affecting as the Major: sensitive, sympathetic, and complicated in this Oscar-winning performance. Wendy Hiller won one as well for her controlled passion and common sense. Miss Cooper dodged a bullet there and she knows it.

Edith Head got a credit for dressing up Rita Hayworth, but I'd really like to know who dressed Deborah Kerr down. Is there an award for frumping up one of the most beautiful women in the world?

It's a fine picture that doesn't mind being a play and is well worth a viewing for Mr. Niven and the peripherals. Nobody dies and things do turn out all right in the end.

By the time Marni Nixon was 18, she had performed as a violinist, a child actress (The Bashful Bachelor, 1942), an opera singer, and a concert soloist. She began her film dubbing work as Ingrid Bergman's interior heavenly voices  in Joan of Arc  (1948) and as Margaret O'Brien singing in The Secret Garden (1949). Nixon went on to perform on Broadway, but "fixed" voices for Hollywood films for years -- most notably Marilyn Monroe's high notes on the song "Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend" in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.

 But we know her best (if we know about her at all) as the singing voice of Deborah Kerr in The King and I  and An Affair to Remember, Natalie Wood in West Side Story, and Audrey Hepburn in My Fair Lady -- work for which she received no credit until years after the fact.

Often the studios were so protective of their stars that Nixon had to sign agreements not to reveal her work behind the scenes. Natalie Wood didn't even know her voice was being as extensively dubbed as it was until West Side Story  was finished. Nixon says that just the way it was for "playback singers" in Hollywood: every one of them knew they'd get no credit, but that was the job. Some of the stars she dubbed were oomphy about it (Wood) while others were decent and respectful of her talent (Hepburn and Kerr, no duh).

Marni Nixon did make one film appearance as a nun in The Sound of Music, but mostly she performed on stage, in cabarets, in opera -- even hosting a popular children's show in Seattle in the 70s and 80s, for which she won several Emmys. Not too shabby!

An amazing career and a remarkable talent. I should probably read the book.