Shot in the Lancashire countryside around the towns of Burnley and Clitheroe, the isolated and bucolic settings accenting the wistfulness of the kids sheltered naivete while also serving as last stand (or Last Supper) setting for their guest. Stalwart character actor (and future ‘M’) Bernard Lee plays their widowed father.
Their figure of adoration and mystery is Alan Bates, 26, in his second film (he’d had a small role the previous year in The Entertainer). Their precociously talented 15-year-old daughter Hayley plays ‘Kathy’, big sis to ‘Nan’ (Diane Holgate,10) and ‘Charles’ (Alan Barnes,7). Well established as actor and writer, Bryan Forbes made his directorial debut with this charming and touching fable, the screenplay by Keith Waterhouse and Willis Hall taken from the 176-page novella by Mary Hayley Bell, the wife of actor John Mills. Innocent as lambs, they accept this literally, and commence a ritual of caring for him in secret, not realizing their saintly charge is actually a fugitive, wanted for a serious crime. When they jostle him awake by asking his name he exclaims “ Jesus Christ!”. Then one day, securing a home in their barn for some cast-off kittens, they find another stray taking refuge, an exhausted young man with a beard. Rural farm life for the three ‘Bostock’ children is a round of the dull and dutiful-classroom, church, chores-with the light and lively-play, pets, pranks. A beautifully performed allegory, it’s a children’s story with appeal for adults, one that put feathers in several deserving caps. WHISTLE DOWN THE WIND has carried a haunting, sentimental echo down through the years since its 1961 release, mostly for those who saw it in England, where it was a sizable hit: the American release a year later was little attended.
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