Our Mother's House

Released Oct 9, 1967

1h 45m

Drama

Mystery & Thriller

List

60%

Tomatometer

5 Reviews

77%

Audience Score

100+ Ratings

Refusing to take medicine owing to her fundamentalist beliefs, Mother Hook (Annette Carell) dies, leaving her seven orphaned children to fend for themselves. Not wanting to be put in foster homes, the siblings bury their mother in the garden and successfully keep her death a secret. When their long-lost father (Dirk Bogarde) returns, it's initially a happy reunion, as he helps perpetuate the fraud. But soon he shows his true colors -- drinking, carousing and scheming to sell the house.

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Roger Ebert

Chicago Sun-Times

Rated: 3.5/4

Jan 23, 2005

Full Review

Judith Crist

Vogue

Dirk Bogarde creates an unforgettable character as the vulgar, sinister, and somehow appealing "father" who invades the children's world.

Feb 27, 2020

Full Review

Penelope Houston

The Spectator

It isn't the actor's fault, it isn't precisely the director's fault, that a subject which always threatened to be unmanageable finally proves itself to be so.

Jul 13, 2018

Full Review

Dennis Schwartz

Dennis Schwartz Movie Reviews

Clayton and Bogarde felt the end result was a failure, and I concur.

Rated: C+

Aug 17, 2009

Full Review

Shane Burridge

rec.arts.movies.reviews

The idea ... has been done before in everything from comedies to horror movies

Jan 20, 2005

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Frances H

A chilling view of children left on their own and how they react to their father who returns just when their world is starting to unravel. Bogarde shows what a genius of an actor he was. He could always play any kind of character from charming to downright evil, and in this flick he plays them both! And so very convincingly!

Rated 4 out of 5 stars

01/22/21

Full Review

Audience Member

Depressing, maudlin screed to religious fanaticism and the children's ties to it.

Rated 2 out of 5 stars

02/16/23

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Audience Member

The best film of 1967 made by the only filmmaker to have directed only 5 star films is one of the most sublime movies ever made.

Rated 5 out of 5 stars

01/14/23

Full Review

Audience Member

Director Jack Clayton is an interesting case. He's a filmmaker who made films for over four decades, but only has seven films to his credit as director. Some of his most well known are his adaptation of Henry James' "Turn of the Screw," re-titled "The Innocents" and his adaptation of the Ray Bradbury short story "Something Wicked This Way Comes." Those two and this film all share rather macabre elements of childhood. This film revolves around a family of several children who's mother dies and then children decide to hide her body and just tell everyone their mother is ill so that they are not split apart by child welfare. It's a rather heartbreaking story and does an excellent job capturing the child's perspective on this tragic situation. It's not as edgy as "The Cement Garden" and not as glib as "Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead," but is an intelligent and fascinating story.

Rated 4 out of 5 stars

01/31/23

Full Review

Audience Member

Complex and disturbing but very well made.

Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars

02/27/23

Full Review

Audience Member

Here's another forgotten piece of film history. So many great movies get lost in the shuffle of time and an always crowded box office. They never get the attention they deserve. Some just don't get the proper media coverage or struggle to find the right audience, which I believe was the case when this was originally released in 1967. In "Our Mother's House," Mrs. Hook (Annette Carell) dies after refusing to take medicine owing to her fundamentalist beliefs. She leaves her seven orphaned children to fend for themselves. Not wanting to be put in foster homes, the siblings bury their mother in the garden and successfully keep her death a secret. When their long-lost father (Dirk Bogarde) returns, it's initially a happy reunion, as he helps perpetuate the fraud. But soon he shows his true colors -- drinking, carousing and scheming to sell the house. What a touching and disturbing film "Our Mother's House" is. Every single actor onscreen is completely invested in their role. Dirk Bogarde makes you hate the scheming loser he portrays as he lies and mistreats the children. The child actors are incredibly talented and all establish their own individual characters so that the viewer truly empathizes with them. I would consider "Our Mother's House" to be a drama with sprinkles of thrills and chills here and there. The scenes of the oldest daughter (Pamela Franklin) trying to contact their dead mother via a sort of séance add a little supernatural flavor to the movie as well. They never really tell you whether she's actually talking to the deceased or faking it to make the children listen to her. Franklin was perfect for the role and continued to freak people out as a clairvoyant in "The Legend of Hell House" a few years later. Although it's unrated, "Our Mother's House" would garner a PG at the least by today standards. It's a pretty intense film that deals with death and the effects it has on children. The movie contains light profanity, brief adult situations, alcohol and smoking, and some frightening and intense sequences. The part where the mother is lying lifeless in bed with the children surrounding her is one of the most shocking and realistic depictions of death I've ever seen onscreen. "Our Mother's House" is another fine example of a classic film somehow being overlooked by cinema enthusiasts. It's a brilliant family drama blended with just the right amount of effective creepiness to keep you in suspense. The child actors never failed to impress me as they moved from emotion to emotion. www.ersink.com

Rated 4 out of 5 stars

02/24/23

Full Review

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Jack Clayton

Director

Dirk Bogarde

Charlie Hook

Margaret Leclere

Elsa

Pamela Franklin

Diana

Louis Sheldon Williams

Hubert

John Gugolka

Dunstan

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Synopsis

Refusing to take medicine owing to her fundamentalist beliefs, Mother Hook (Annette Carell) dies, leaving her seven orphaned children to fend for themselves. Not wanting to be put in foster homes, the siblings bury their mother in the garden and successfully keep her death a secret. When their long-lost father (Dirk Bogarde) returns, it's initially a happy reunion, as he helps perpetuate the fraud. But soon he shows his true colors -- drinking, carousing and scheming to sell the house.

Director: Jack Clayton
Screenwriter: Jeremy Brooks, Haya Harareet, Julian Gloag
Production Co: Filmways Pictures
Genre: Drama, Mystery & Thriller
Original Language: English
Release Date (Theaters): Oct 9, 1967, Limited
Release Date (Streaming): Sep 1, 2009
Runtime: 1h 45m

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