Strictly average movie

Not even bad in a good way

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

This is a British film which stars Bette Davis as a nanny for a family living in London in which a young boy has been sent away for supposedly killing his sister. The boy is due to be released after two years and return to his family home and under Ms Davis' supervision.The boy vehemently protests his innocence and insists that instead it was the nanny who committed the terrible deed. Is he right? Or is the nanny indeed guilty?There's already the almost unspeakable taboo of a child killing another child within this film which gives it a grittiness right from the get go. The household in question is steeped in Gothic tension even though it is in fact light and airy. No Baby Jane mansion here.There's also the stifling formality of English life at this time. There are so many manners and formalities at play that are overwhelmingly suffocating and claustrophobic. Within the film there is also a delicious generation gap which underlines this and presents a tangible 'Old vs new' scenario. The boy in question, Joey forges a friendship with a 14 year old girl who lives in the same building. She dresses like a hip 60s girl, all white lipstick and black eyeliner. When we see within her bedroom Joey gazes up at a Beatles mobile she has hanging from the ceiling and at one point we see her reclining on her bed reading a copy of the girls magazine Jackie which has a pin up of Brian Jones of The Rolling Stones on its back cover. Beautifully acted (especially Ms Davis of course whose character has a pair of the ugliest eyebrows ever captured on film) and elegantly directed, this is one of Hammer's finest films.Of course this would only have been made with Ms Davis if Hollywood wasn't casting the very best stars of yesteryear anymore. Every cloud has a silver lining. What was Hollywood's loss was very much Hammer's gain.

You don't have to be Sherlock Holmes to figure out who the nut job is in "The Nanny". This is Bette Davis in post "Baby Jane/Sweet Charlotte" mode. She's nanny to disturbed little Joey, (an excellent William Dix), who may or may not have drowned his little sister in the bathtub. Joey is a sulky little sod given to rather extreme practical jokes, (little pretending to hang himself), but one look at Mary Poppins Davis and you might be inclined to run a mile. That fine and underrated director Seth Holt directed his excellent psychological chiller well adapted by producer Jimmy Sangster from Evelyn Piper's novel. Davis is superb but so too are Wendy Craig and Jill Bennett as Dix's mother and aunt. It has now built up something of a cult reputation.

Although she did have other and good roles in her last three decades, it seems that after Whatever Happened To Baby Jane, Bette Davis was forever trapped in the horror/fright genre where all good actresses of the studio era seemed to gravitate. No one gravitated more than Bette Davis.Hammer Film, British horror specialists signed Davis for The Nanny. It's the day of the arrival home of William Dix the young son of James Villiers and Wendy Craig. It seems as though a few years back young Dix drowned his sister in a bathtub. He swears that it was The Nanny who did it. But everyone took Davis's word over a child. I'm also not understanding why if one kid was dead and one was in a psychiatric facility there was a need to keep a Nanny employed.Why Dix was let out is a mystery to me since he was completely incorrigible in his incarceration. Maybe they needed bed space. When he gets home Dix really acts out hostility toward Davis.What did happen to the little sister? There are as Catholic doctrine tells us sins of omission and sins of commission. Davis was guilty of a sin of omission but the results were fatal. The fright part of this is that you never know until the end what really happened and just how to parse out the guilt. The Nanny is an all right piece of fright work from Hammer. It will never be rated as a top Bette Davis film.

Surprisingly dull considering the promising premise & the participation of Bette Davis in the title role. Davis is nanny to the seemingly incorrigible Joey (William Dix), who may or may not have killed his little sister. His parents are befuddled (in the case of mom Wendy Craig, completely neurotic) as to what to make of little Joey. The boy proclaims his innocence to anyone who'll listen. It's a shame that this Hammer film isn't better...or at least scary. Davis affects an odd English accent and Craig is fairly hysterical, but there's no suspense or action just a lot of explication. Dix is very unappealing and so is young Pamela Franklin as his confident. Jill Bennett does add some spark as Joey's saucy aunt, who proves to be swifter than the other adults in the film (and regrets it). Directed by Seth Holt and based on the Evelyn Piper novel. Otto Preminger had better luck the same year with BUNNY LAKE IS MISSING (also penned by Piper).