The Chalk Garden (film)

The Chalk Garden
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Ronald Neame
Produced by	Ross Hunter
Screenplay by	John Michael Hayes
Based on	The Chalk Garden (play) by Enid Bagnold
Starring	Deborah Kerr Hayley Mills
Music by	Malcolm Arnold
Cinematography	Arthur Ibbetson
Edited by	Jack Harris
Release date	21 May 1964
Running time	106 min.
Country	United Kingdom United States
Language	English
Box office	est. $3,250,000 (US/ Canada)

The Chalk Garden is a 1964 British-American film directed by Ronald Neame. It stars Deborah Kerr and Hayley Mills and is an adaptation of the 1955 play of the same name by Enid Bagnold. DVD Release 1.10.14

An elderly woman hires a governess, Miss Madrigal (Deborah Kerr), with a mysterious past to look after her disturbed, deceitful, and self-centered teenage granddaughter Laurel (Hayley Mills), who has seen off many previous governesses. Laurel feels intense sexual jealousy and resentment of her beautiful mother who lives elsewhere, and has been taught by her Grandmother to hate her mother. When Miss Madrigal arrives, Laurel is intrigued by her apparent lack of a past, and tries to investigate who she is and to "expose" her. Through this investigating, Laurel helps precipitate the climax of the film where it is revealed that Miss Madrigal was convicted of murdering her step-sister 15 years ago and was sentenced to death, though the sentence was commuted and she'd been in prison since then. Instead of running away from this fact once it is revealed, Miss Madrigal uses this painful revelation to convince Laurel and her Grandmother that she was once like Laurel, and that Laurel should leave her Grandmother's toxic environment and go to live with her mother where she can grow into a better person. Laurel understands Miss Madrigal's self-sacrifice as an example of love, and follows her advice to live with her mother.

Edith Evans was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role. She lost to Lila Kedrova in Zorba the Greek. Arthur Ibbetson was nominated for the BAFTA award for best cinematography.

The New York Times wrote, "a GREAT deal of scrupulous cultivation and orderly shaping of the plot have been done to make a film of...Enid Bagnold's eccentric British play...the tangle of its arrangement and the overgrowth of its characters have all been trimmed and weeded by some prudent and skillful hands to make the bright, sweet and aromatic picture that opened at the Music Hall yesterday...Ronald Neame, who has directed the picture, and John Michael Hayes, who has written the script, present us with a cozy, compact drama that follows a comfortable, sentimental line...There are moments, however, when the sharpness of Miss Bagnold's oblique slant on life cuts through, usually in glints of hidden mischief or in lines of slashing paradox and wit. When these come, the film sparkles briefly beyond the brightness of its Technicolored hues."