A las nueve, cada noche

The reason few have heard of this film is because it is impossible to categorise. Made a few years after the same director made The Innocents and with much of the same sense of mystery and wonder but also the same fear of discovering just too much underneath. The swinging sixties seem a long way off in this almost Dickensian comic tragedy and much of the action seems to evoke the 50s and all those pre war skeletons tumbling out of creaking closets. Hints of incest and worse are probably the main reasons that this has all but disappeared but its a shame because all the children perform remarkably, as do Dirk Bogarde and Yootha Joyce. Immaculate direction, fine music and a wonderful script.

I was actually an extra in this film, as the school scenes were filmed at my junior school, St Leonards Church of England School in Chelsham, Surrey. I remember having to wear my best school uniform and do as I was told. I was 8 years old, I suppose, and it was all very exciting with the lights and the trailers and all the people buzzing around. I don't remember whether we were allowed to meet the stars; I somehow doubt it!

This is a great film, very atmospheric, very spooky, and totally believable - kids in the 1960s were obviously very resourceful (and full of very odd ideas). Needless to say, I wasn't allowed to watch the film until I was much older than when I was in it.

Seven children continue in "Our Mother's House" after she dies in this 1967 film starring Dirk Bogarde, Pamela Franklin, and Mark Lester, and directed by Jack Clayton. A very ill, religious woman, the mother of seven, dies suddenly at home. Her children, afraid of being separated, bury her in the garden and continue to live as if nothing had happened, forging her monthly annuity check. One day, their long-absent father (Bogarde) reappears.

Based on a novel by Julian Gloag, Haya Harareet (Heston's Ben Hur co-star) and Jeremy Brooks fashioned an excellent screenplay, beautifully directed by Jack Clayton, a true master (The Innocents, The Pumpkin Eater). With a dark, spooky atmosphere inside a big old house, he creates the world in which the children live, one where they care for one another, pray, and communicate nightly with their mother. When Charlie Hook, their father arrives, that all changes, and the world comes rushing in. At first, Charlie is what is needed - his presence means they're safe from the outside world, but gradually, even his supporters among the children begin to see that he's a danger.

Clayton manages to bring in an incestuous undertone without overtly showing any incest - in the days when directors needed to adhere to certain codes, they called upon their imaginations. It made film more subtle and definitely more interesting to watch.

The acting is superb. Bogarde is in top form as the at first lovable Charlie, who, as he does in "The Servant," gradually becomes more sinister. Pamela Franklin is marvelous as Diana, one of the older children; all of the children are excellent - Clayton was no stranger to directing children, and his deft hand is shown here.

Perhaps not a well-known film in the U.S., "Our Mother's House" will make a lasting impression.

At the beginning of the sixties ,Jack Clayton made a fine adaptation of "the turn of the screw",called "the innocents" which featured P.Franklin too.This could be called "more innocents "but there's a strong difference between the two works.Although "our mother's house" verges on fantastic,there's nothing irrational,nothing supernatural here.THat's what we can call a miracle of a movie:because it sounds like a horror and fantasy movie without all the genre gimmicks .So people who're looking for gore,special effects and other paraphernalia,please pass by.If you enjoy strong screenplays,first-class performances and masterful direction,this is a must.

Eight children whose mother's just passed away want to go on with their life as if nothing happened.Besides ,they do believe that their mother is still with them,and Pamela Franklin 's rendering is absolutely stunning when she acts as some kind of medium:far from the usual clichés -as you can see in "ghost" for instance-,she will give you goose pimples.This mother will remain a mystery,maybe a saint steeped in piety,maybe somebody much worse than a goody-two-shoes,as Charlie eventually claims.

Charlie is masterfully portrayed by Dirk Bogarde who was in his more fruitful period with such masterpieces as "accident" "king and country" "la caduti dei degi" "morte a Venezio".He keeps people waiting for he only appears after about forty minutes.But when he's on the screen ,the chemistry between the thespian and the children is so obvious that there's no hiatus.At first sight,he resembles some adult Peter Pan (hairdo,swagger,clothes,not to forget the name:Hook!).Here ,where Spielberg dismally failed when he made "Hook" ,Jack Clayton with a much smaller budget had already succeeded in portraying an adult/child, more than twenty years before.But further acquaintance will show that an adult can no longer remain a child .When Charlie is a man again,tragedy is waiting around the corner.

"Our mother's house" is so rich a movie that you could stay all night talking about it:a twilight glow shines on an autumnal suburb and turns into absolute darkness for the last sequence.Georges Delerue's score is simply marvelous and enhances the perfection of the pictures.

A strong influence on the French movie "la fracture du myocarde".

See it at any cost.

OUR MOTHER'S HOUSE is one weird psychological ride. Here we have a family living in a gloomy Victorian house with a reclusive, Bible-thumping invalid mother--surely fertile ground for insanity or incest or both. However, what we have is a painful portrait of adolescence in the older children and the horrors of navigating through an adult world. Left to their own devices after the mother's untimely death, the children do their best to survive, being molded by the mother's unstable religious ramblings. However, things take a turn for the worst when the absentee father arrives, shattering some illusions crucial to the little family's identity. . .

I've never seen anything like this film(the recent film THE CEMENT GARDEN comes to mind, but that film takes an entirely different direction with an incest theme), one in which children literally elevate their mother to the status of religious icon. This situation is simultaneously chilling and pathetic. This one is for people who enjoy character-driven psychological dramas.