Our Mother's House

Dirk Bogarde - Charlie Hook
Pamela Franklin - Diana Hook
Margaret Brooks - Elsa Hooks
Mark Lester - Jiminee Hook
Yootha Joyce - Mrs. Quayle
Louis Sheldon - Williams Hubert Hook
John Gugolka - Dunstan Hook
Phoebe Nicholls - Gerty Hook
Gustav Henry - Willy Hook
Parnum Wallace - Loui

Darkly engaging look at domesticated life and parenthood by seven orphaned children in London’s sleepy Croydon suburbia. Dirk Bogarde is in excellent form as their shifty long-lost father but the children, including Pamela Franklin and Mark Lester, are far from the angels they appear to be. Julian Gloag's novel was adapted into an excellent screenplay but Clayton and Bogarde felt the end result was a failure.

Following the death of their mother, the Hook children, fearing they’ll be sent to an orphanage, bury her in the back garden and inform inquisitive locals that the doctor has sent her to the seaside to convalesce. The children keep up the pretence by going about daily life as usual; going to school, buying the shopping and forging their mother’s name to withdraw money from the bank. When a local schoolteacher arrives at their large Victorian home demanding to see the children’s mother it appears the game is up – but the unexpected entrance of their wayward Cockney father Charlie (Dirk Bogarde) placates the teacher. Charlie begins to spend their savings frivolously on beer and women, but when in a moment of anger he calls their mother a tart and the children all illegitimate, the innocents rise up in fury.