Sky West and Crooked

This charming and unusual film was written by Mary Hayley Bell (with inspiration from DH Lawrence's story 'The Virgin and the Gypsy'), directed by John Mills, and starred their daughter Hayley as disturbed teenager Brydie.

The basic premise - that the girl is 'sky west and crooked' because of something that happened in her childhood that she can't remember - soon switches into a 'growing-up' kind of tale as Brydie meets gypsy boy Roibin (Ian McShane). The people in the village are equally well-drawn (Brydie's mother, played by Annette Crosbie; the vicar, played by Geoffrey Bayldon; the grudge-bearing Mr Dacres, played by Laurence Naismith; and the gypsy grandma played by Rachel Thomas).

From encouraging the children around her to bury dead animals in the consecration of the churchyard, to her love match amongst the caravans and the Romany customs, Hayley Mills makes Brydie a delight, although she acts and looks much younger than the character's age of seventeen. As Roibin, Ian McShane is very much in 'glamour' mode, perhaps photographed too sympathetically to make the character believable.

Still, 'Sky West and Crooked' is a well-written and directed piece, a lovely fairytale in which the idealism of first love is well presented and where the surroundings, whether a church or an open road, marry to the action perfectly.