Cheap Whistle Down the Wind (Video) (Bernard Lee, Alan Bates) (Bryan Forbes) Price

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Marvelous role for Hayley Mills
"Whistle Down the Wind" is the story of three motherless English children left to their own devices while their father runs the farm. The eldest child, Kathy (Hayley Mills) herds her quiet sister, Nan, and mouthy little brother, Charlie. While the adults in their world have little time for the children, Kathy seems to take her caretaking role very seriously. The children gather at home for meals prepared by their resentful aunt, and the rest of the time, they romp through the countryside annoying their father's handyman and upsetting his traps. The children really are quite separate from the practical running of the farm--in fact--they get in the way. So when handyman, Eddie, throws kittens in the river to drown, it is Kathy who leads the children to save and hide the kittens in the barn.

A fugitive (Alan Bates) takes refuge in the barn, and Kathy, in her innocence and with recently awakened religious sensitivity, mistakes the man for Jesus Christ. Kathy's mission then becomes to save and protect the man from the rest of the world.

"Whistle Down the Wind" is really a marvelous gem. I saw it as a child and was recently lucky enough to track down a copy and watch it again. The film raises interesting questions--I found it profoundly sad as a child, but as an adult, I recognize the brilliance of the filmmaker (director Bryan Forbes). Innocence and faith are integral parts of this film. Is the innocence of children to be lauded or just noted sadly as it inevitably vanishes? "Whistle Down the Wind" remains--to me--one of the best performances from Hayley Mills. In this film, she shines--displacedhuman.

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Thought-provoking minor classic of British cinema
Stylistically, Whistle Down the Wind treads the centre between the sentimentalism of postwar British cinema and the stark realism of the sixties. The bleak Lancashire countryside is photographed with great ambience by Arthur Ibbetson (The Railway Children, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory).

The story has three children discovering "Jesus" in their barn, and follows their attempts to keep his presence a secret from the adults. Underneath the events of the film is a journey of faith and doubt and puzzlement. There is a quite deliberate ambiguity, I think, that left me wondering whether the film was cynical or positive about the virtues of childlike faith.

The children turn in believable performances, including Hayley Mills, whose presence works surprisingly well, despite my suspicion that her star persona might add a touch of artifice to the production. The rest of the child cast are made up of real Lancastrian schoolchildren, so the thick northern accents and quaint idioms are all quite genuine.

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An arty, thought-provoking UK cult classic
Alan Bates plays opposite a teenage Hayley Mills in this odd parable about a band of rural English children who mistake a fugitive criminal for the second coming of Jesus Christ. The indeterminate nature of the ending, which is open to subjective interpretations, makes this a difficult film to pronounce judgement on: non-Christians may not totally get the theological implications, but the dynamic between the aloof, dismissive adult villagers and the flock of children who readily revere the dishelvelled, dangerous Bates is an interesting precursor for the 'Sixties generation gap that was to come. Beautiful B&W cinematography, and excellent performances by all the child actors, who, amazingly, act like real kids do: petulant, competitive, and able to believe the fantastic.