GusF Based on the 1959 novel of the same name by Mary Hayley Bell, this is an excellent film concerning faith and childhood innocence. As the storyline concerns a group of children mistaking a fugitive for Jesus Christ, religious faith is definitely to the fore. However, it also deals with children's faith in the basic goodness of people, something which unfortunately proved to be misplaced in this instance, and this is very effectively contrasted with the more cynical, suspicious attitude of adults when it comes to such matters. The film has a first rate script by Keith Waterhouse and Willis Hill which hits all of the right notes. It does a very job of balancing the more naturalistic elements with the fact that the film is, at its heart, an allegorical parable about Christianity. The most obvious of these allegories is the fact that the faux Jesus has twelve disciples and a young boy is forced to deny three times that he has seen him. Although it is quite a serious film, there is nevertheless a great deal of humour on display and this is executed in a very natural manner when it could have easily felt forced. The script deals with its themes respectfully and sensitively without really getting preachy, which is a major accomplishment in and of itself. In his directorial debut, Bryan Forbes handles the material very effectively and makes great use of the locations.The film stars the author's daughter Hayley Mills in a terrific performance as Kathy Bostock, the eldest child in a Lancastrian farming family who discovers the escaped murderer Arthur Alan Blakey in her family's barn. She mistakes his exhausted and surprised exertion of "Jesus Christ!" for a statement for his identity, which is helped by the fact that the young, tall, handsome and bearded Blakey resembles the typical depiction of Christ. However, all that glisters is not gold. Mills is of course well known for her (very) Received Pronunciation accent and, in spite of her best efforts at a Lancashire accent, her natural one is in evidence for much of the film. However, the one that she uses is perfectly fine and, in any event, it may have been for the best that she did not go over the top with it as such things can easily become distracting at best and laughable at worst. At 14, she was perhaps two or three years too old to be entirely believable as someone who would mistake a stranger for Jesus but it still manages to work in the context of the film. Kathy is a very kind, clever and compassionate young girl who finds great comfort in her faith. While it is not specifically stated, I imagine that is partly due to the fact that her mother is dead. However, on this occasion, she allows her faith to blind her to the harsh realities of the world. She places her trust in Blakey and, when she finally realises his identity, she is let down badly. Kathy seemingly becomes more world weary as a result but she remains as convinced as ever that Jesus will return.In his first major role, Alan Bates is very good as Blakey, who is astonished when he learns who the children think he is but, understandably under the circumstances, does nothing to disabuse them of that notion. He is most certainly not a good man but he develops an odd rapport with Kathy as the film progresses. By the end of the film, he begins to feel guilt over his crime and this was clearly influenced by his interaction with the children, who have a rather higher opinion of him than is warranted. Blakey is seemingly not a religious man as he discards the Bible at one point but I think that all the talk of Heaven has made him wonder if he will end up in Hell. Be that as it may, he will probably end up being hanged in the not too distant future. Bernard Lee is excellent in the role of Kathy's loving father and is able to convey a great deal of quiet dignity in his performance. While he is most certainly a good man, the children view him and the rest of the adults as being essentially the Romans and are concerned that things will turn out just as badly as they did the first time. This attitude is accidentally encouraged by the Sunday school teacher Miss Lodge, who tells them that they would have to protect Jesus from the bad people in the world if he were to return. Alan Barnes steals the show with his hilarious performance as Kathy's younger brother Charlie, who is the first of the children to realise that Blakey is not the real deal. He made only one other film, "The Victors", after this, which is a terrible shame as he is a natural actor. In her only acting role, Diana Holgate is not on quite the same level as Nan but I would have still welcomed seeing her in other films. The film also features strong performances from Roy Holder as Jackie Greenwood (who thinks that Jesus would be surprised by "Wagon Train" and the Cup Final if the Second Coming were to happen sometime soon), Norman Bird as Eddie, Hamilton Dyce as the well meaning but somewhat clueless Reverend Reeves and Elsie Wagstaff as the Bostock children's cold and unfeeling Auntie Dorothy. One sure sign of Richard Attenborough's behind the scenes involvement is the presence of his brother-in-law Gerald Sim in the small role of Detective Frank Wilcox. He later cast him in seven of the films that he directed (from "Oh! What a Lovely War" to "Shadowlands") and, while he never had a big part, they were all at least bigger than this!Overall, this is a simple and occasionally beautiful film on the subject of faith, whether in God or in people, and growing up.

keith-moyes-656-481491 Like many pictures, Whistle Down the Wind is a frustrating mixture of the good and the bad.The good includes:A screenplay by Keith Waterhouse and Willis Hall that keeps the embarrassment down to an endurable minimum.The uniformly good, natural performances that Bryan Forbes coaxed out of all those untrained kids (probably the best ensemble acting by children I have seen).The bad includes:A lazy, inappropriate 'Mickey Mouse' score by Malcolm Arnold that continually undermines the realistic aesthetic of the picture.An ill-conceived premise in which Kathy, a girl who appears to be about 12 or 13, finds a man in her barn and concludes he is Jesus, largely on the basis of an expletive that she must have heard a hundred times. This excruciating piece of whimsy requires Kathy to act like a credulous retard (who nonetheless manages to draw all the other local children into her improbable delusion). When young Charles glumly observes "he's just a fella' the whole fragile premise of the picture collapses.The numerous parallels with the New Testament story (the stable, the bearing of gifts, the disciples, the 'teaching', the three denials, Judas/Doubting Thomas, the crucifixion pose, etc.) are never too obtrusive and the story flows just as naturally if you don't notice them. Nonetheless, they are still an essentially pointless artifice that subtracts meaning from the movie, rather than adding it.This film seems to encourage people to sound off about the simple faith of children and the cynical worldliness of adults, but this sort of analysis doesn't bear scrutiny and, in truth, this picture is always saying less than it thinks it is.The best I can say of Whistle Down the Wind is that it is a bad idea well executed.PS: I have never read the book, but I suspect Kathy is somewhat younger than she appears here. It might have been better to use a child of the right age, rather than the 15-year-old Hayley Mills. She did make a fairly convincing 12-year-old, but that was still too old and compromised whatever credibility the story might have had. Then again, the movie probably wouldn't have been made without her.

duke1029 Although WHISTLE DOWN THE WIND is a sincerely-felt and sensitive treatment of a highly unusual plot line, Bryan Forbes' film seems to have cribbed its major plot premise from the 1950 screen adaptation of Damon Runyon's JOHNNY ONE-EYE. In this independent, low-budget programmer, wounded gangster Pat O'Brien, running from a murder charge, hides out in a deserted Greenwich Village building. A neighborhood moppet and her one-eyed dog stumble upon him, and she mistakes him for Santa Claus. She keeps his secret and smuggles food to the doomed fugitive.Unfortunately, Robert Florey's direction lacks the taste and restraint that Bryan Forbes brings to the same subject matter, and the JOHNNY ONE-EYE's storyline becomes swamped in bathos and saccharine sentimentality. Although Mary Hayley Bell was lauded for her apparently strikingly original plot line, it appears to have been a reworking of this unpretentious Damon Runyon short story.

animala "Whistle Down the Wind" is the story of young English children left on their own, their mother dead, their father a busy and distant farmer. Kathy (Hayley Mills) is the eldest of three. Adults in this movie have no time for joy, children, or mysticism. Life is utilitarian. The farmhand throws kittens in the river to drown—Kathy and co. save and hide the kittens in the barn. This sets up the important premise of the movie and maybe in what was a coming revolution in the 1960s—the unspoken battle between the idealistic youth and the unhearing/uncaring establishment.In this picture, the "establishment" are the adults. Resentment, no vision and platitudes are their way of greeting every event—and life seems to be unimportant in the wake of commerce. Maybe in the face of this cold void, the kids, especially Kathy are looking for some outlet—some warmth, some type of Messiah in their lonely world where they have love to give but no adult wants it.Enter the fugitive, "antiestablishment" Alan Bates. Dangerous looking, magnetic, countercultural—he becomes one of the living that Kathy wants to protect when she mistaken believes that he identifies himself as "Jesus Christ". The kids try to care for and hide the Second Coming as they believe Bates to be, from the adults who they perceive to have no hearts left. With deliberate ambiguity, the story explores issues of faith and doubt and really made me ask the question--Is the innocence of children to be cherished or dismissed as out of place with modern cynical society? This movie straddles a thin line of fantasy and gritty poetic realism that was prevalent in Black and white UK 60s cinema.I just loved it as a kid. The scene where "Jesus" is suffering, lying under the hay on the floor as he is stepped on in his concealment will always stay with me. Then when he is led away the way he raises his arms is as if it is a Crucifixion. My crap VHS copy fell apart so I hope it will be out on DVD in the US this side of 2010.