Something thesis this way comes!

quote:

Originally posted by dandelion:
Something thesis this way comes!

In honor of Phil's thesis triumph and my having just seen The Innocents again, now bumping up this thread.

The Turn of the Screw was a childhood terror long before I read the book as an adult. I had never heard of the story until the daytime TV soap opera Dark Shadows used it as a storyline for several of their characters and Mom called them out on it. (Granted, this was December 1968 so I would have only recently turned 7.) Mom had the following amusing stories:

While living in the Philadelphia area in the 1940s, Mom saw a stage play of The Turn of the Screw, excellently acted. The scene which made the biggest impression on her was when Peter Quint was in a french door or large window behind Miles, whipping a riding crop, and Miles was in front of him, also holding a riding crop, and though with his back to Quint, slashing perfectly in time with his motions--to show Quint's total control over Miles. Mom felt kind of possessed herself, because when the performance was over and she was outside, it was as if two little characters said to each other, "Shall we tell her now?" "Yeah, now is good." It turned out she had agreed to babysit that evening and hadn't remembered till that moment! Luckily it all worked out fine.

In the 1950s in the Chicago area, Mom and her roommates had a Halloween party and when there wasn't time to completely pack away the decorations, they stashed a skeleton in the closet, which when the landlady discovered it evoked from her piercing and most horrid screams. Shortly afterwards, they were cooking something, causing the windows to steam up. The landlady peeked in a steamed-up window, and Mom, seeing a ghostly outline, pointed and shrieked, "It's Peter Quint!" sending her roommates into hysterics. The landlady came in laughing, "I scairt the wadden out of you girls. Serves you right after scaring the wadden out of me." Mom had to explain that "wadden" was stuffing such as from a teddy bear.

My own amusing anecdote occurred several years following the 1968 introduction to the story, when my sisters and I watched with Mom The Innocents from 1961, probably the best movie adaptation of The Turn of the Screw. That night I and both my sisters were crammed into bed all trying at once to plaster ourselves next to Mom when the closet door slowly creaked open. No one moved, or scarcely breathed. Mom asked, "Why doesn't someone get up and close that door?" I said, "Miss Jessel's in there," and my sisters screamed hysterically while Mom said, "Thanks a lot."

So for many years I've had warm memories of the story, but have been a little sad ever since learning Ray Bradbury insisted on having Jack Clayton, the director, for Something Wicked This Way Comes, thinking it would be wonderful like The Innocents, or true to the book like The Great Gatsby. Sadly, the result was uneven, while parts were great, the overall film was just so-so. Every time I see The Innocents I wish Something Wicked could have been that good!