The Nanny | |
---|---|
Theatrical release poster
|
|
Directed by | Seth Holt |
Produced by | Jimmy Sangster |
Written by | Jimmy Sangster |
Starring |
Bette Davis William Dix Wendy Craig Jill Bennett |
Music by | Richard Rodney Bennett |
Cinematography | Harry Waxman |
Edited by | Tom Simpson |
Production
company |
|
Distributed by |
Warner-Pathé Distributors (UK) 20th Century Fox (USA) |
Release date
|
7 November 1965 (UK) 27 October 1965 (U.S.) |
Running time
|
91 min. |
Country | United Kingdom |
Language | English |
Budget | $1,300,000 (estimated) |
Box office | $2 million (US/ Canada) |
The Nanny is a 1965 British suspense film directed by Seth Holt and starring Bette Davis, Wendy Craig and Jill Bennett. Davis appears as a supposedly devoted nanny caring for a ten-year-old boy recently discharged from a home for disturbed children. It is based on the novel of the same name by Evelyn Piper (a pseudonym for Merriam Modell), and the film was scored by Richard Rodney Bennett. The film was made by Hammer Film Productions at Elstree Studios.
Ten-year-old Joey Fane returns home from the special school he has attended since the death of his toddler sister. At home he creates a terrible fuss, moving from the bedroom Nanny has prepared for him to one with a strong lock and access to the fire escape, refusing to eat anything Nanny cooks and adamant that Nanny shall not come near him. He also accuses Nanny of trying to kill him.
Nanny runs the Fane household, but in practice infantilizes the women of the Fane family. Everyone assumes Joey is deeply disturbed and dangerous, but it emerges he is quite right to be afraid of Nanny.
The Nanny has been well received by critics. It currently holds a 91% approval rating on movie review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes based on eleven reviews.
AllMovie called it "one of Hammer Films' better non-supernatural outings of the 1960s".
The movie screening rights were sold to American television for nearly $400,000.