Whistle Down the Wind (film)
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Whistle Down the Wind is a 1961 British film directed by Bryan Forbes, and adapted by Keith Waterhouse and Willis Hall from the 1959 novel of the same name by Mary Hayley Bell. The film stars her daughter Hayley Mills, who would be nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best British Actress for this film.
Unusually, almost all the main characters are children; the film attempts to show the world through the eyes of an innocent child.
In 2005, the British Film Institute included it in its list of the 50 films that children should see by the age of 14.
Plot
Three Lancashire farm children discover a bearded fugitive (the Man/Arthur Blakey) hiding in their barn and mistake him for Jesus Christ. They come to this conclusion because of their Sunday School stories and Blakey's shocked exclamation of 'Jesus Christ!' when Kathy, the eldest child, accidentally discovers him. In Sunday School the children quiz their teacher and become even more convinced in their belief.
The story spreads to the other children and ten visit him in the barn. While he sits in the hay in a Bethlehem type setting they bring him gifts and kneel as they present them. They ask for a story. They want a Bible story but he reads to them from a newspaper. When two adults appear the children have to leave and Blakey has to hide in the hay. He asks why they are helping and Kathy says "because we love you" and hands him a folded Bible picture of Jesus.
In a playground one boy gets bullied for saying he has seen Jesus. The children watch in dismay as the boy eventually renounces his statement. When Kathy says she has seen him the bully slaps her face.
Blakey—initially confused about why the three Bostock children are eager to protect him from adult discovery—makes no attempt to correct their mistake, especially when he discovers the eldest child, Kathy, is determined to keep him hidden from the local police, despite the posters circulating in the nearby town that reveal he is wanted for murder.
When Blakey lets a kitten die, with no remorse, a doubt is sown in the minds of some of the children. The children quiz the vicar as to why Jesus does not save every person and animal and he says it is so the world does not get crowded.
Blakey sends Kathy to retrieve a package he has hidden. A police manhunt enfolds as Kathy searches. She finds the package under a rail in a railway tunnel. This provides Blakey with a revolver.
At Charles' birthday party one child takes an extra piece of cake and lets slip it is "for Jesus". Charles says it is not Jesus, it is "just a fella."
Kathy's father realises the connection to the missing criminal and the police are called in to apprehend the criminal. The father waits outside the barn with a shotgun.
The children of the village, perhaps 100 of them now in on the secret, converge on the barn. Kathy sneaks behind the barn and passes a pack of cigarettes through a hole, but she has forgotten matches. She says she has not betrayed him, but the police are closing in. He forgives her and, after much prompting from her, promises she will see him again. Resigned to his fate, Blakey tosses his handgun out of the barn door and surrenders to the police.
Blakey stands arms outstretched as he is frisked. His silhouette echoes the crucifixion.
Once Blakey is taken away and the crowd disperses, Kathy is approached by two very young children who ask to see Jesus. She tells them that they missed him this time, but he will be back one day.
Cast
- Hayley Mills as Kathy Bostock
- Bernard Lee as Mr. Bostock
- Alan Bates as Arthur Blakey (Credited as the man)
- Diane Holgate as Nan Bostock
- Alan Barnes as Charles Bostock
- Norman Bird as Eddie
- Diane Clare as the Sunday School Teacher
- Patricia Heneghan as Salvation Army Girl
- John Arnatt as Superintendent Teesdale
- Elsie Wagstaff as Auntie Dorothy
- Hamilton Dyce as the Vicar
- Howard Douglas as the Vet
- Ronald Hines as P.C. Thurstow
- Gerald Sim as Detective Constable Wilcox
- Michael Lees as 1st Civil Defence Worker
- Michael Raghan as 2nd Civil Defence Worker
- May Barton as Villager
- Roy Holder as Jackie
- Barry Dean as Raymond or Patto (the teenage boy who slaps Kathy in the playground)
