Whistle Down the Wind

Whistle Down the Wind is a 1961 British film, directed by Bryan Forbes, produced by Richard Attenborough and starring Hayley Mills, Bernard Lee and Alan Bates.

Before reading the plot summary, please bear in mind that this is actually a highly moving piece of cinema. It's just that the plot's hilarious.

Three children (the eldest of whom, Kathy, is played by Hayley Mills), who live on their widowed dad's (Lee) farm Oop North find an escaped murderer in their barn. A combination of a Salvation Army member confusing the children and a misplaced blasphemy by the criminal (Bates) leads the children to believe he is in fact Jesus Christ himself. The word soon gets out to the rest of the children's Sunday school class who resolve not to tell any adults and to keep him safe for the mean time. The criminal (who the police want under the name "Blakey") asks Kathy to fetch a parcel for him, she obliges, not knowing the parcel contains a revolver, leading to the climax when one of the children reveals the secret.

The film was based on the 1959 novel of the same name by Mary Hayley Bell (Hayley Mills' mother) with the same plot but set in Sussex. Attenborough asked the writers to give it a more realistic feel by setting it in Lancashire.

In 1996, it was made into a stage musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Jim Steinman.


 * Affably Evil; Blakey's murdered his wife, but he can still be mistaken for Jesus.
 * Ear Worm; the theme tune, my goodness, the theme tune.
 * Free-Range Children
 * Jesus Christ
 * Oop North
 * Shout-Out: To The Bible throughout the film.
 * Tear Jerker
 * The Vicar: Appears briefly in a scene where he fails to explain to the children why bad things happen.