Laurel (Hayley Mills) is a willful, stubborn, and bratty 16-year-old living in a house on the chalk cliffs of Sussex in southern England with her imperious class-conscious grandmother, Mrs St. Maugham (Dame Edith Evans).
The selfish grandmother has separated Laurel from her divorced and remarried mother, Olivia (Elizabeth Sellars) because she disapproves of her actions and is determined to raise the girl as her own, telling Laurel that she was abandoned and unloved by her mother.
The other occupant of the house is Maitland (John Mills), a male servant who is privy to a lot of secrets he seems to be keeping to himself.
When Miss Madrigal (Deborah Kerr) is hired to look after Laurel (after the previous six applicants for the job fled after meeting the girl) the troubled child directs all her hostility toward her new governess, convinced that she has a mysterious past since she will talk so little about it.
Tensions are brought to a head when old Judge McWhirrey (Felix Aylmer) drops in for lunch and recalls a case he tried many years before.
Miss Madrigal
Deborah Kerr Laurel
Hayley Mills Maitland
John Mills Mrs St. Maugham
Edith Evans Judge McWhirrey
Felix Aylmer Olivia
Elizabeth Sellars Anna
Lally Bowers Mrs Williams
Tonie MacMillan
Director
Ronald Neame
Related Posts
Flame in the Streets (1961) Made in the wake of the 1959 Notting Hill riots, Flame in the Streets is an early examination of tense racial prejudices…
Bus Riley's Back in Town (1965) As Bus Riley, Michael Parks shuffles and mumbles his way through this small-town melodrama. He's a former sailor twice jilted…
Whistle Down The Wind (1961) A group of scruffy, adorable children, led by gumdrop-eyed Hayley Mills, discover injured escaped convict Arthur Blakey (Alan Bates) sleeping…
Child In The House (1956) With her mother in the hospital and her father (Stanley Baker) on the run, 11-year-old Elizabeth (Mandy Miller) is sent…
Cure For Love, The (1950) Jack Hardacre (Robert Donat), a be-medalled sergeant, returns to his Lancashire home from the Middle East on 21 days' leave.…
Daydreamer, The (1966) It's 1801 in Odense, Denmark. Young Hans Christian Andersen (Paul O'Keefe) - known as Chris - lives with his father,…
Servant, The (1963) Self-consciously 'modern' when it was released, this study of class power and sexual desire starred James Fox as upper-class twit,…
Reptile, The (1966) Blowup may have been the peak of auteur-driven cinema in Britain in 1966, but the year also represented something of…
