“We have been doing sex” is Flora and Miles’s answer when housekeeper Miss Jessel asks what they are up to. The brother and sister have seemingly been violently attacking each other on a bed. The inspiration is gardener Peter Quint’s interactions with their governess Miss Jessel: Miles has been spying on them. The Nightcomers sought to provide the backstory for Henry James’ The Turn of the Screw and, in so doing, explain the torments in the novella.
While doing this unnecessary job, 1971’s The Nightcomers also tried to shock. Quint is played by Marlon Brando with a laughable Irish accent and a disinterested detachment that suggests he may have been sleepwalking. The part of Miss Jessel was taken by Stephanie Beacham in her first major film role. It is impossible not to feel sorry for her: she repeatedly appears topless as Brando first mauls and then strangles her with rope. Later, she is naked on a floor and trussed up like a deer being brought back from a hunt. Bondage was not meat-and-potatoes to mainstream cinema in the early Seventies and director Michael Winner was brave to court attention by taking it on. But the result is exploitation cinema as risible as it is seedy, even with an ending that actually provides a jolt.
The dynamic between the dominant Quint and the submissive Jessel is punctuated by scenes showing its effect on Flora (Verna Harvey) and Miles (Christopher Ellis): both are much older than they ought to be if this really was a proper prequel to The Turn of the Screw – the sexual content meant younger actors could not be used. The children’s endless prattle irritates but this is Brando's film – it's built around him. The trailers included as extras label him as “Brutal” and “Beautiful”. He is neither. Instead, he is absurd. Oliver Reed would have done a better job. So would Ken Russell as director.
The Nightcomers was made in 1971 but released in 1972 just a month before The Godfather hit British cinemas. Last Tango in Paris followed in early 1973. In those, Brando took on challenging roles and executed them commensurate with his talent. With its transgressive sexual themes, the fatuous Nightcomers can be seen as a taster for Last Tango but is actually no more than a curio demonstrating that great actors can be inconsistent and that their presence does not necessarily confer class.
Overleaf: watch the trailer for The Nightcomers
Watch the trailer for The Nightcomers
