Whistle Down the Wind - Josephine Botting

Based on Mary Hayley Bell's 1958 novel, Bryan Forbes's Whistle Down the Wind (1961) tells the unsettling story of three siblings who find a stranger hiding in their family barn. Mistaking him for Jesus, they slowly discover he is in fact an escaped murderer. Josephine Botting's study places this remarkable film within the landscape of the British industry in the early 1960s and examines Keith Waterhouse and Willis Hall's deft adaptation of the source material.

Drawing on archival research and new interviews with cast and crew, Botting reassesses the creative contribution of director Forbes while bringing overdue attention to the women who worked on the film, whose contributions have often been overlooked, including continuity supervisor Penny Daniels and production secretary Ann Skinner. Forbes' direction of the cast, which included both amateur and professional actors, and the children's performances, against the backdrop of an unwelcoming Lancashire landscape shot in stark black and white, make for a moving and compelling tale. Botting explores how the cinematography, editing, musical score by Malcolm Arnold and use of sound all contribute to the creation of an emotionally powerful narrative, yet one that avoids the sentimentality or 'cuteness' that child-centred films can fall victim to.

Botting traces the film's critical reception and cinematic legacy, including its influence on films such as Ken Loach's Kes (1969), The Railway Children (1970) and El Espiritu de la Colmena (Víctor Erice, 1973) that also capture the cruelty of both the adult and the natural world through the eyes of children.