The Nightcomers

In a Victorian England country estate, Flora and Miles' parents have died, but the staff and guardian don't seem to want to tell them. They also don't seem to want much responsibility, leaving the young kids in the hands of the governess, Miss Jessel (Stephanie Beacham), and the companionship of the gardener, Peter Quint (Marlon Brando). In fact, Quint is the one that tells the children of their parents' deaths.

When the film begins, Quint seems to have an affectionate relationship with the kids, he plays hide and seek for instance, but has sexual perversions that gradually reveal themselves to the audience.


Qunit has a sadistic sex relationship with Miss Jessel. In the light of day she treats him as befits their social stations, but at night, she cowers in sexual submission. Quint's personality is the type that tortures animals and in fact, he reminded me of Jud Fry from the musical Oklahoma!.

The boy Miles begins to show some perverse tendencies about sex, death and love under Quint's instruction. He tends to believe everything Quint tells him. One night he spies Quint and Miss Jessel having bondage sex and the kids playact at the same thing and their conversation alludes to them (the kids) already having had sex with each other. (I don't know if that is really the case or if they are too naïve and confused about what sex really is.)

Later the housekeeper (Thora Hird), although she doesn' know the truth but disapproves of Quint and his bad influence, mistakes Miss Jessel's rope burns on her neck as a suicide attempt over a broken heart. The kids lure the housekeeper to the treehouse and strand her there, then help the couple prepare for a tryst in a very serious manner; it almost seemed like they were preparing for a wedding.

The tryst turns violent, beyond just a sexual tension, and the next day the kids again playact the scene where the girl Flora reveals that she (Flora) was meant to die, which Miss Jessel denies. They equate love with death, and Miss Jessel and Quint dies as a result. A new governess arrives.

The story is pretty fascinating and I wonder what kinds of statements it is making--is it saying perversions are a learned behavior?

Brando I thought was on the verge of being too old for this part, there are some parts where he has to do physical activity and he always appeared winded and slow. His character too was portrayed as way too unseemly in public and I thought if they dialed it down a bit, to create a more "normal" character, it would make his dark personality at night even more creepy (which it is, no doubt about that). It makes me wonder what this character was like as a child. Brando's Irish accent comes and goes. I'm not sure who else could have been chosen for the role, knowing what an oddball he became in his later life, he seems the right actor.

Beacham's portrayal conversely appears way too normal in the daytime, she is a gentle proper governess and there is no indication at all of her nighttime perversions (I know this sounds like the total opposite of my comments about Quint's character). Plus she is naïve in her own way to believe there could be any kind of love or romance in the relationship. I guess the relationship was symbiotic in its own way.

The music seems all wrong for this film. For instance there is happy chase music during the hide and seek, full string lounge-y music during the bondage scene. I was expecting something darker. Overall the music seems more fitting for a family film or regular drama.

This story is supposed to be a prequel to The Turn of the Screw" but I don't think it is based on anything Henry James had written, just an re-imagining of the book and characters.