The original novel WHISTLE DOWN THE WIND, written in 1959 by Mary Hayley Bell, who is Hayley Mills' mother, so there is little wonder that Hayley is cast as the lead after Disney's POLLYANNA (1960) has catapulted her to stardom and she has become the last person ever to receive a Juvenile Oscar. Also it marks a director debut of Bryan Forbes (SÉANCE ON A WET AFTERNOON 1964).Hayley plays Kathy Bostock, a young schoolgirl living in the farm of Lancashire, with her widowed father (Lee), her younger sister Nan (Holgate) and younger brother Charles (Barnes), as well as their auntie (Wagstaff). Due to a sheer coincidence, Kathy firmly believes a man (Bates) who hides in their barn, is Jesus Christ himself, this is where the story works, thanks to Hayley's superbly credible performance and her mother's well-conceived creation, Kathy is disconcerted by speaking of the truth of Jesus and for fear of being punished for blasphemy, so it is pretty logic for her to be startled by the man's exact presence in the barn and his muttering word "Jesus Christ" before passing out, and believes he is Jesus, arrives for the Second Coming. It potently justifies a rather cockamamie situation, which serves as the cornerstone for the ensuing happenings. Once Kathy is on board, it is not difficult to convince her two younger and more impressionable siblings to believe her words, then a whole bunch of school-kids, deferentially joins them to worship Jesus-in-the- barn.The story fluidly blends children's naiveté with the religious influence, and stimulates sheer zest and excitement in children's endeavour to save Jesus from the intervention of adults, and the man's true identity, a criminal on the lam, consigns a trenchant contradiction into a dichotomy between children's innocence and grown-ups' worldliness, where credulity and blind faith are put to good use by the man, for his own interest, who even menaces the children-friendly trappings with a gun in hand in the final siege, and from A to Z, the film has been deliberately avoiding to address the elephant-in-the-room, so in the end, in Kathy's eyes, it is Jesus who has been captured, not a wanted offender.The three children are the backbone of this rustically beguiling film, Hayley Mills' dogged devotion towards her belief, Diane Holgate's spur-of-the-moment slip and Alan Barnes' fractious mischief, plus his adorable acting-cum-being-himself antics (and he is the one who is telling the truth, although no one takes him seriously), all enliven the relatively small scale of the narrative with immense delight. Alan Bates, only in his second film role, underplays his handsomeness (although the requisite is that he should look at least remotely like J.C.) to foreground the moral ambiguity of his character, a cynical chap, very cagey about his criminal background (supposedly to be a wife murderer according to IMDb), he is a blank paper just plays along with the kids to secure a getaway plan, at one point, viewers are tempted to be ready for something rather ugly will happen, which is foiled regarding to the family-friendly grain, but a sense of remorse is accurately added in his last words? There is no cheesy redemption to facilitate a feel-good ending, and under the coat of a children story, the film in effect, pinpoints how easily religion can corrupt a child's psyche, being a double-edged sword, sometimes it is much sharper than we think, we must wield it cautiously.

What creates the terribly poignant mood of this movie is the continuing contrasts between Christian teaching and acts, right from the beginning, when the little boy asks the Salvation Army lady if she will take care of the unwanted kitten. She fobs him off with "Jesus will look after it," which of course is worse than useless because it gives the child false hope and makes him feel that loving Jesus is useless too. Couldn't she have made SOME effort to find someone to care for the kitten instead of dispensing vapid promises of universal love? When Hayley Mills asks the Sunday-school teacher what would happen if Jesus came again, the teacher keeps avoiding the question and, when Mills asks, Would they do to him what they did before? is told, they might, because there are still bad people.As the film shows, the adult world is composed of some people who are bad and many others who are thoughtless and insensitive and have no trouble with saying one thing and doing another. They tell the children to be good but are themselves mean-spirited, harsh, and cruel, and would see no conflict between the two. The Hayley Mills character is so touching because she is just reaching the age at which children stop taking things literally and start turning into adults. We want her to believe that the murderer is Jesus, even though it is a lie, because the "real" world she lives in is so soulless.Perhaps the most troubling scene is the one in which the local bully, a boy not much older or bigger than the other children, knocks one little boy down and twists his arm while all the others stand and watch. Why do none of the others interfere? Just a few of them could overcome the bully. Hayley Mills arrives, and the bully hits her. She does not fight back, or even react--one must assume because she knows none of the others would help her. These children go to Sunday school, but they just watch, as if they had no sense of right and wrong, only the law of the jungle. They have, in a sense, become adults already--the ones we read about all the time who stand and watch someone being attacked and do nothing.

John Mills' daughter, Hayley, leads a sterling British cast of adults and children in this touching story about seriously confused identity.Alan Bates is a dangerous escaped criminal. Wounded and exhausted he takes shelter in the barn at the family's farm. Hayley Mills plays Cathy, a not-to-bright girl on the cusp of puberty who mistakes the criminal for Jesus Christ. It's a bit of a pose; but if you can get your head around it, the rest of the movie is a delight. Cathy has a younger brother and sister who quickly learn the secret, and pretty soon every kid in the neighbourhood knows it too - but not the grown-ups.As the story develops, we see critical elements of Biblical storyline reprised in the lives of the children. The local bully - otherwise in ignorance - forces a younger, weaker child to deny his existence three times, clearly without realising the irony of his actions.Ultimately, their secret escapes. The adults lock him in the barn and call the police. He surrenders without a fight, and whilst being frisked by officers, with his arms outstretched, his posture resembles a crucifixion from a distance, which only cements the belief more completely in Cathy's mind.This movie hails from the heyday of so-called kitchen-sink dramas. Set in the remoteness of north Yorkshire, the scenery is bleak but wonderful. The bleakness is emphasised by filming in black and white, which was almost de rigeur for kitchen-sinkers. Every detail is finely observed, with a farm yard of such cloying muddiness you can almost feel it, and a house that surely smells of fresh bread, preserves and dampness.The script, like the acting is entirely believable and natural. There are no bum roles in this movie. A vicar more spiteful than pious bellyaches about vandalism. Both he and a teacher prove unequal to the questions about life and death that the children raise. The kids themselves never put a foot wrong. A 1960's working-class Yorkshire family is very convincingly recreated, though the rural dialect has clearly been sanitised for broader audience appeal. I am tempted to say over-sanitised, because a little more authenticity might have made 'foreigners' have to think a little, but there are (or perhaps were) some great little nuances of pronunciation that wouldn't have hurt to be included, even if subtitles were needed. But perhaps that's just nit-picking.This is a movie that's as relevant today as it was then. It concerns the great divide between childhood wonder and adult cynicism. Belief, hope and misunderstanding compete with pragmatism and responsibility.All of the technical issues of lighting and editing are up to the standard and evidently modest budget. And finally, there is that haunting theme tune that lingers in your memory as much as the movie itself.Highly recommended viewing for all ages. Every generation can learn something from it.

Set in the bleak Pennine Mountains of Lancashire this is a moving story of a young girl who befriends a murderer on the run. The girl lives on a farm with her strict relatives and the murderer hides in a barn. She mistakes him for Jesus and the children of the village seek to protect him from both her relatives and the police. It is at times touching and funny at others. The Lancashire accents, especially those of the children, may be hard for non-British people to understand. Hayley Mills, as the girl, and Alan Bates, the wanted man, excel. The film received four BAFTA nominations - all thoroughly deserved. One was for the performance of Hayley Mills. She is the daughter of Mary Hayley Bell who wrote the novel on which the book is based.