The Nanny (1965)
Nanny (Bette Davis), a London family’s live-in maid, brings morbid 10-year-old Joey (William Dix) back from the psychiatric ward he’s been in for two years, since the death of his younger sister. Joey refuses to eat any food Nanny’s prepared or take a bath with her in the room. He also demands to sleep in a room with a lock. Joey’s parents — workaholic Bill (James Villiers) and neurotic Virgie (Wendy Craig) — are sure Joey is disturbed, but he may have good reason to be terrified of Nanny.
It’s October, and you know what that means… bring on the horror flicks. With Halloween just around the corner, it seems many are ready to get their frights in. This may not be a typical ‘horror’ film, suspense yes, but not horror. Still, when I stumbled upon this black & white movie on TCM, I felt compelled to watch it – and boy did it shake me to the bone!
The movie starts out innocently enough. There’s a traumatized mother, still morning over the death of her daughter even though her husband and Nanny are to bring home her son from boarding school. The son, Joey, a brat in every sense of the word. We see him pulling a particular nasty prank at the institution before he leaves – of pretending to hang himself in his room to frighten one of the older women watching over the boys. You get the sense that even Joey is disturbed on some level, but the details don’t get discovered until later in the movie.
It’s when Joey sees Nanny that you get the impression that he really dislikes her. At first you just put it towards him being too old to have a Nanny and wanting to prove to his parents that he can be independent. He takes this to a new level when he returns home and refuses to use the new updated room they designed for him, instead taking the spare room that has a fire escape. He refuses to eat anything Nanny cooks, and even makes it clear that he doesn’t want to have Nanny in the bathroom when he’s taking a bath. At first his requests and attitude seem rude and mean, then again he at this early stage he just seems like a bratty kid.
You have to ask why the Nanny is there at all with a kid aged 10… but you see the mother having problems, unable to grasp her emotions, getting overly worked up and relying heavily on Nanny still at her age. We learn that Nanny not only serves Joey (and his late sister) but was also their mother’s Nanny too. There’s a connection that I can understand that the family wanted to keep her on as she’s part of the family.
Joey, in turn makes friends with a 14-year-old girl who lives on one of the top floors of the building. Her father’s a doctor, and she has this ‘Maniac Pixy Girl’ vibe going on. She smokes, flirts with older men and engages Joey in his accusations that his Nanny is a mean person and – lo and behold – trying to kill him. It’s an accusation both Nanny and his mother disregard and really begin to grow concern over Joey’s own mental state. It’s a paranoia that Joey refuses to have. It’s when Joey reveals how his sister died, even though the girl questions his truthfulness of it – you start to wonder if the Nanny is really out to get him after all.
Throughout the movie you’re questioning everything Joey says. He sounds like he’s making this up, but there’s a real fear in him whenever Nanny is around. You think he’s just being a brat but near the end of the movie the truth comes out…. In a devastating and suspenseful way. You learn what happened to Nanny that day the little sister died, the truth she had in the matter and her own attempts at hiding all she did – including trying to hush Joey up in a number of ways.
For a horror flick there’s no bloodshed, no maniac – well maybe one in this movie. Either way it’s a great build up with a disturbing ending regarding a Nanny whom people must trust with their children. For anyone who enjoys old movies and the old style of tension and build up, this movie is great to watch. I highly recommend it.
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