eigaeye Beg, borrow or steal, but get your hands on this outstanding film. The entire cast give what are arguably their best screen performances, which is saying something since we are talking about Edith Evans, Deborah Kerr, Hayley Mills and John Mills. The script is intelligent, witty and penetrating; the directorial hand is sure and unobtrusive; the camera-work and editing of the highest order: really this (where has it been hiding?) film is one-in-a-hundred good. I am amazed to find it available on on a "vault" release, with no extras or commentary. It deserves recognition and an expanded release. That said, the picture and sound are both excellent.

littleprince1977 THE DVD is SO MUCH better than VHS. Colours better than the fading VHS. I've waited for YEARS for this to be in DVD format. GREAT thanks On VHS I must have watched this 15-20 times, IF NOT MORE. Dame Edith Evans- her acting-incredible. John Mills, father of Haley (actor-director), Deborah Kerr, and Haley Mills; all great as well. The interaction between the actors, the actors themselves, AND the saucy script; I don't know which is the best. I believe that it is a combination of the wonderful script and the incredible actors. I'm surprised it took this long to put it on DVD. I'm not going to discuss the plot-line...Just know you will be watching FOUR actors at their peak or on their rise. BUY the DVD for yourself...watch it...if you do not like it....THEN write your own review and call me a liar. THIS is a WONDERFUL '60's sleeper classic!"Will you stay with me, would you?..."I must know one thing...DID YOU DO IT?" "Before I die I will find out"

Olivia Temple This is the story of a disturbed adolescent, Laurel, played with frightening conviction by 18 year-old Hayley Mills, and her battle with herself and all those who come into contact with her. A subtle study of the havoc that can be let loose when all you want is your mother's love and it is absent - apparently. Cleverly adapted by John Michael Hayes from the play by Enid Bagnold, the script is brilliant and compelling. Set in a large traditional English house above the white cliffs of Dover where the garden is equally chalky and barren the overall feeling is one of continual frustration and loneliness. Into this incendiary climate a cool and severely beautiful new governess appears, Miss Madrigal, played to perfection by Deborah Kerr. She is the most recent of many who have come and gone as Laurel systematically drives them all away with her outrageous behaviour and aggression - regularly released by lighting a bonfire in the garden and screaming as the flames ignite. Laurel's grand-mother and guardian, supremely played by Edith Evans, is determinedly blinkered as to the severity of Laurel's incipient psychosis and is more concerned with the smooth running of the house, relying on her over-worked butler, John Mills, to keep tabs on the day to day chores and duties as well as being Laurel's main companion. Laurel and Miss Madrigal meet their match in each other as Laurel delves and pries into the governess's mysterious past and Miss Madrigal identifies with and warms towards the unhappy girl. Hayley Mills gives an astonishing performance where the sinister and the vulnerable sides of Laurel's character are shown with great skill and emotion.

theowinthrop Based on a play by Enid Bagnold, THE CHALK GARDEN is the story of the need to bring love - real love - to children. Deborah Kerr is Miss Madrigal, a newly hired nanny/companion at the home of Mrs. St. Maugham (Edith Evans), a wealthy and slightly eccentric old woman who has been at war with her daughter Olivia (Elizabeth Sellars) for some time. Olivia has a daughter Laurel (Hayley Mills) who has emotional problems, and whom Mrs. St. Maugham has legally taken away from Olivia. The old lady pretends that only she can give the love and care to the girl that her own daughter fails to give, but in reality she allows Laurel to have full freedom. As Laurel is an arsonist and liar this is not the best policy. The household is completed by the wryly humorous butler Maitland (John Mills). He sees the blundering by his employer, and he would like to tell a few things to Laurel, but he restrains himself because of his status as an employee.Madrigal, of course, having just arrived is more willing to openly confront Laurel. She does so in an effort to understand her. Laurel appreciates having a new person to toy with, and opens up to an extent (revealing a love of old murder cases), but she is trying to find out the secret that Madrigal is holding back on - which she assumes can prove quite wounding if exposed, and she would love to expose it.At points the secret comes near to the surface, but it keeps getting closed as quickly as it seems to appear. In the meantime Madrigal tries to get her employer see the need for Laurel to have her mother back into her life, and even gets Olivia into the house at one point. This does not sit well with Mrs. St. Maugham.The explosion finally occurs when a friend of Mrs. St. Maugham, Justice McWhirry, comes for a visit encouraged by a malicious Laurel. What result is too much even for the young girl, who learns that some matters should remain secrets.I saw this fine film at Radio City in 1964, but I imagine my parents took me and my sister there because Hayley Mills was given star treatment in the newspapers for this film. At that time, due to her string of movies with Walt Disney like POLLYANNA, the reference to Mills' name in any movie to an American audience suggested a "kid's flick". That she had started her career with TIGER BAY (also with her father John and Holst Bucholst) regarding a young girl helping a young man trying to avoid arrest for murder was relatively unknown - that film, like THE CHALK GARDEN, was made in England. Only Hayley's American films like THE PARENT TRAP (again with Disney) were for kids. The subject matter here, on what damage can be done to a young child by warring adults and lack of needed affection, was not ignored by Disney but was usually sugar coated somehow. Films like THE CHALK GARDEN did not sugar coat the subject matter, and so they did not do as well with American audiences as British ones. If you see this one listed on Turner Classics grab it. Hayley gives a fine performance as a malevolent and sharp imp. Kerr holds her own as the woman who offers help but is heavily handicapped. Evans (after a great West End stage career) began really coming into films in the late 1940s, but in sharp character roles like in THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST or TOM JONES or THE QUEEN OF SPADES. It was a later entrance than Peggy Ashcroft's or John Guilgud's, but it proved highly rewarding. John Mills is excellent as usual in his role of the wiser but (by social situation) quieter butler (who finally does get his moment to tell off Laurel). Sellars has a shorter role than one would like, but makes the most of it confronting Evans. And my old favorite Aylmer has a moment of recognition that few Judges like to ever experience.