The Innocents... (2)
In Focus is a new collection of articles focussing on an important film appearing on Sky Movies Classics that month. In-depth, analytical and revealing, In Focus aims to shed new light on old films. To get a seat at the table, all we ask is the film be one of the finest examples of its genre.
Focus No.2 is Jack Clayton's peerless ghost story The Innocents.
"The best ghost movie I have ever seen..." - Pauline Kael
The credulous young Miss Giddens (Deborah Kerr) wins the post of governess to the orphaned Miles (Martin Stephens) and Flora (Pamela Franklin) by their rich, self-concerned uncle (Michael Redgrave).
Miss Giddens is informed the previous governess, Miss Jessel (Clytie Jessop,) died in mysterious circumstances and to avoid broaching this subject with the fragile Flora.
The governess instantly forms an attachment to Flora and Miles, expelled from school for reasons not entirely clear.
Soon, Miss Giddens begins seeing a strange couple walking the grounds of the house and believes them to be the restless souls of Miss Jessel and her violent lover Quint (Peter Wyngarde), who also suffered an untimely death.
Watch the terrifying daytime appearance of Miss Jessel
Watch a clip from The Woman in Black
Horrified by the accounts of their exploits related by the housekeeper Mrs Grose (Meg Jenkins), Miss Giddens becomes convinced the spirits are attempting to possess and corrupt the children, and takes upon herself the mission to protect them...
From the start, it was clear The Innocents would dance to a different rhythm from the Hammer horrors and colourful Corman/Poe adaptations.
With a then lofty million dollar budget, a six times Oscar nominated lead actress and an Oscar winning cinematographer, the film oozed class as much as ectoplasm.
Clayton however was not to be stifled by studio demands for an A-picture and produced a ghost story with moments of sweaty-palmed terror, a perverse love story with genuine pathos, and a tragedy with the most shocking ending.
The film begins with an unseen Flora singing over a black screen and then the 20th Century Fox logo, before Kerr's hands, clasped in prayer, fade-up. But, these hands suddenly appear clasped in frustration, and a tormented Kerr kisses them before weeping, and moaning, "I must protect the children"
Openings have rarely been more enthralling and troubling, and Deborah Kerr's naked, increasingly unhinged performance captivates from this first moment.
The Innocents has been hugely influential to Western filmmakers: The Others takes it name from a line of dialogue in the film and shares a similar story, while 1989's The Woman in Black lifts nightmarish shots, and The Ring remake sampled Flora's song.
Clayton delighted in wrong footing the audience, running counter to typical ghost story expectations.
Miss Jessel's first appearance during a game of hide and seek, silently walking the corridors of the uncle's mansion, is a shocker due to a lack of signposting and the phantom's indifference to the living.
Quint appears atop of a tower in broad daylight, again knocking the audience off-balance: spooks should materialize only in hours of darkness. Mrs Jessel also appears twice in daylight, once sobbing in the children's classroom, and earlier in the film's most chilling shot, suspended amidst reeds in a lake.
Conversely, Miss Giddens' nocturnal walk through the house searching for the two spirits is traditional horror movie alchemy: a perfect fusion of 
Freddie Francis' claustrophobic cinematography, Kerr's terrified and terrifying performance and a cacophony of wails and moans with no fixed point of origin.
A sustained tour-de-force of menacingly experimental sound and stark visuals worthy of horror producer Val Lewton, its presence can be felt in films as diverse as Ju-on and Suspiria.
Clayton also couldn't resist inserting old-fashioned jump-out-your-seat moments with his bad guy, Quint: his first nighttime appearance at a drawing room window the best example. Clayton declared Fox forced him to shoot in Cinemascope against his wishes, but scenes such as this require the wide screen.
Using deep focus (which required tremendous amounts of light, ironically making The Innocents the "lightest" ghost story ever made) to keep attention on one side of the frame, Clayton has the shadows of the other side reveal Quint's terrible face, the moment happening before the audience can prepare itself.
Revolutionary at the time, this device can be seen in the head under the boat scene from Jaws and in Michael Myers' repeated resurrections at the end of John Carpenter's Halloween, using the dark corners of the screen to reveal nothing when there should be something, and something long after there should be nothing.
