Wednesday, February 23, 2022

Movie review - "The Chalk Garden" (1964) ***

 Not a typical Ross Hunter film in some ways - it's not American, not a remake, there's no Lana Turner or Sandra Dee. But there are Lana Turner-Sandra Dee type parts: Deborah Kerr is a mysterious governess with a Past involving murder and Hayley Mills is the spirited kid who is troubled and makes life hard for governesses.

There's some decent mystery - what happened to Mills' father? What's the deal with Kerr? Plus a strong cast including Edith Evans as Mills' grandmother and John Mills (in the John Gavin part I guess) as the butler, who probably should be creepy to make this more exciting but is actually nice.

I enjoyed it. Some movie stars hanging around a nice set, with decent Ronald Neame direction, lush music. I got a bit confused in places, the relationship between Mills and her mother Elizabeth Sellars felt under cooked, but it was entertaining.

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