The Nightcomers

The Nightcomers (1972)

Two Children. Two Adults. One Unspeakable Crime.

Prequel to the Henry James classic "Turn of the Screw" about the events leading up to the deaths of Peter Quint and Ms. Jessel, and the slow corruption of the children in their care.

Date of release
1972-02-15
TMDB
5.7 / 10 (84)
Runtime
1h 36m
Genres
Drama, Horror, Thriller
Director
Michael Winner

Casting

Interesting facts

The Nightcomers is a 1971 psychological horror film directed by Michael Winner and starring Marlon Brando, Stephanie Beacham, Thora Hird, Harry Andrews, and Anna Palk. It is a prequel to Henry James' 1898 novella The Turn of the Screw, which had already been adapted into The Innocents (1961). The film focuses on groundskeeper Peter Quint's corruption of Miss Jessel, a virtuous governess at an English manor, as well as the two children in her care.

Production

The film was based on an original script by Michael Hastings. He started with the beginning of the Turn of the Screw and plotted backwards. He says he wanted the two lead characters to be "plausible... based on their strange eroticism."

The children in the film are portrayed as being a few years older than in the Henry James novel. Reviewer Brian Holcomb sees the reason for this in the sexual nature of the film and their roles in it (Verna Harvey was in fact 19 at the time).

Brando's casting was announced in November 1970. Filming took place in February and March 1971.

The manor house in the film is Sawston Hall, a 16th-century Tudor manor house in Sawston, Cambridgeshire.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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