Possibly the best ghost story ever filmed, Jack Clayton's The Innocents, an adaptation of Henry James's novel The Turn of the Screw, offers spooky apparitions, demented religiosity, repressed sexuality (in an adult), emergent sexuality (in pre-teenagers), and incest in a manner that is funny, poignant, and unforgettably creepy. It is perhaps no wonder that Truman Capote (Breakfast at Tiffany's, In Cold Blood) was partly responsible for the screenplay (along with William Archibald, co-screenwriter of Alfred Hitchcock's I Confess). Clayton's direction is full of incisive psychological touches that are immeasurably enhanced by Freddie Francis sinister black-and-white cinematography. Deborah Kerr's masterful performance as the neurotically religious and, surprise!, sexually repressed governess — who sees both sex and ghosts everywhere — remains one of the very best ever put on film.
FILM
Judgment at Nuremberg
Breakfast at Tiffany's
The Children's Hour
The Hustler
The Innocents
Das Riesenrad / The Giant Ferris Wheel
A Taste of Honey
Viridiana
West Side Story
DIRECTOR
Jack Clayton (The Innocents)
Blake Edwards (Breakfast at Tiffany's)
Stanley Kramer (Judgment at Nuremberg)
Joshua Logan (Fanny)
Ermanno Olmi (Il Posto / The Job)
Tony Richardson (A Taste of Honey)
Robert Rossen (The Hustler)
Géza von Radványi (Das Riesenrad / The Giant Ferris Wheel)
Robert Wise & Jerome Robbins (West Side Story)
William Wyler (The Children's Hour)
ACTOR
Clark Gable (The Misfits)
Dirk Bogarde (Victim)
Charles Boyer (Fanny)
Maurice Chevalier (Fanny)
O.W. Fischer (Das Riesenrad / The Giant Ferris Wheel)
Paul Newman (The Hustler)
Sandro Panseri (Il Posto / The Job)
Maximilian Schell (Judgment at Nuremberg)
Spencer Tracy (Judgment at Nuremberg)
ACTRESS
Deborah Kerr (The Innocents)
Anouk Aimée (Lola)
Harriet Andersson (Såsom i en spegel / Through a Glass Darkly)
Leslie Caron (Fanny)
Audrey Hepburn (Breakfast at Tiffany's)
Piper Laurie (The Hustler)
Vivien Leigh (The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone)
Shirley MacLaine (The Children's Hour)
Maria Schell (Das Riesenrad / The Giant Ferris Wheel)
Myoshi Umeki (Flower Drum Song)
SUPPORTING ACTOR
Montgomery Clift (Judgment at Nuremberg)
Francisco Rabal (Viridiana)
George C. Scott (The Hustler)
Martin Stephens (The Innocents)
Robert Stephens (A Taste of Honey)
SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Miriam Hopkins (The Children's Hour)
Mary Astor (Return to Peyton Place)
Fay Bainter (The Children's Hour)
Dora Bryan (A Taste of Honey)
Marlene Dietrich (Judgment at Nuremberg)
Judy Garland (Judgment at Nuremberg)
Megs Jenkins (The Innocents)
Zorah Lampert (Splendor in the Grass)
Rita Moreno (West Side Story)
Daniela Rocca (Divorzio all'italiana / Divorce Italian Style)
SCREENPLAY
Abby Mann (Judgment at Nuremberg)
Julio Alejandro & Luis Buñuel (Viridiana)
William Archibald & Truman Capote (The Innocents)
George Axelrod (Breakfast at Tiffany's)
Shelagh Delaney & Tony Richardson (A Taste of Honey)
Ladislas Fodor (Das Riesenrad / The Giant Ferris Wheel)
Janet Green & John McCormick (Victim)
Lillian Hellman (The Children's Hour)
Ermanno Olmi (Il Posto / The Job)
Robert Rossen & Sidney Carroll (The Hustler)
CINEMATOGRAPHY
Freddie Francis (The Innocents)
Jack Cardiff (Fanny)
Robert Krasker (El Cid)
Ernest Laszlo (Judgment at Nuremberg)
Oswald Morris (The Guns of Navarone)
Sven Nykvist (Såsom i en spegel / Through a Glass Darkly)
Franz Planer (Breakfast at Tiffany's)
Eugen Schüfftan (The Hustler)
Harry Waxman (The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone)
Frederick A. Young (The Greengage Summer / Loss of Innocence)
ORIGINAL SCORE
Henry Mancini (Breakfast at Tiffany's)
Richard Addinsell (The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone)
Georges Auric (The Innocents)
Michel Legrand (Lola)
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