Whistle Down The Wind [DVD]

When a young girl finds an injured man hiding in her father's barn, she asks who he is. Startled by the girl, he exclaims "Jesus Christ!" and falls into an exhausted stupor. His striking resemblance to a picture postcard of Jesus confirms to her and her siblings that it really is Him. The word spreads about "a certain person" amongst the children of the Lancashire village, and secret parcels of food and gifts are brought to nourish and reassure Him. The grown-ups ultimately find out about the terrible confusion the children feel when the Man, who is brought out by the police, is touchingly palpable. An angelic Alan Bates enigmatically plays the Man, who is in fact an escaped prisoner; Hayley Mills plays the delightful eldest child Kathy. Her little brother and sister are played by Diane Holgate, and a particularly loveable and cheeky Alan Barnes, who declares over breakfast that he's eaten "198 eggs since last Easter." This enchanting allegory, written by Mills' mother Mary Hayley Bell, is charming and amusing enough to avoid being sentimental, and has deservedly become a classic.