A real cracker from the 60s, this would make a great double-bill with Whistle Down the Wind. A slightly older Hayley Mills than you might be used to stars as the outcast in a small Welsh village: Bridey White, a girl on the brink of womanhood who remains a child inside thanks to an accident with a gun that resulted in the death of her childhood sweetheart – an incident she has no memory of. She floats around the village, the “ringleader” of the children, taking what some perceive to be an unhealthy interest in the graveyard and death. While putting some flowers on the grave of her old friend, a habit she doesn’t quite understand, a gypsy, Roiden, played by Ian McShane, takes an interest in her, and a love develops furthering the rift between Bridey and the villagers.

Everything I want from a movie is here in spades: real romance, real deep characters living their own way in the face of all obstacles, real drama, real comedy; Hayley Mills looks splendid with blonde hair, sparkling blue eyes, and her usual impossibly glossy lips. I think it may be the first time I’ve seen her in colour (I still haven’t really seen any of the Disney movies she’s more famous for); Ian McShane perfect as the gypsy, it’s no surprise to find he once played Heathcliff in a production of “Wuthering Heights”. The music is by Malcolm Arnold, who composed the equally delightful score for Whistle Down the Wind. John Mills directed, and it amazes me it was his only effort behind the camera. It’s no surprise, though, how he managed to coax such a brilliant performance from his daughter: despite a pretty bad Welsh accent (she didn’t really do well with the Northern accent in Whistle either – but certain actors you can easily forgive when it comes to accents), this is my favourite of her performances I’ve seen so far, reminding me a lot of Tippi Hedren in Marnie (Annette Crosbie as Mills’ mother also reminds me of Marnie’s mother in the Hitchcock movie), she has to display a hell of a lot of complicated feelings here and you wind up wanting the camera on her all the time.

One other performance that surprised me here is the brilliantly written character of the village parson, really making up for the equally well-written, but significantly less admirable vicar in Whistle Down the Wind. He is clearly open-minded about Bridey’s behaviour from the beginning, but always seems to be about to give in to the pressure of the villagers’ rash opinions on the matter. The revelations he faces regarding his own faith outlook and his final eleventh hour reversal make for a fascinating and sweetly amusing subplot that really makes the movie.

An instant favourite of mine, I only wish I’d taped it.

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