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Bosley Crowther review,
New York Times, 23 April 1962
 A
PERFECTLY LOVELY little picture that artfully combines appreciation
of the natural humor of children and their basic disposition
to love and trust has come to us from Britain. It is Beaver Films'
"Whistle Down the Wind," which appropriately had its
local premiere at the Little Carnegie on Saturday.
 We note that the timing was appropriate because
the substance of this thoroughly charming film is evolved from
the reverence and devotion of a group of English north-country
farm children for their concept of Jesus Christ. And the theme
of it is the poignant difference between purity of faith in a
child and the lip service paid by many adults to the ideals of
Jesus in this modern world, all of which is particularly fitting
for consideration in the Easter season.
"Alan Bates
imparts to the role
...a most subtle blend
of shabbiness and radience..."
Don't let this lead you, however, to assume
it is theological or to look for a Sunday-school aura of piety
in this film. While it deals with sensitive material that might
seem blasphemous to some and, indeed, might well be embarrassing
if it weren't handled with consummate skill and taste--it is
beautifully simple, naturalistic and remote from religiosity
as it tells, with great humor and compassion, of children and
brotherly love.
The story is elementary, so simple and inviting, indeed, that
one wonders now why it hadn't been written long before it was
recently put into a novel by Mary Hayley Bell. It is the story
of three farm children, the oldest of whom is a girl of maybe
13 or 14, who encounter one day in their father's barn an exhausted
man whose troubled face is covered with a short, dark beard.
 Involved
at the moment in hiding some kittens they have saved from being
drowned, and also flushed with a fantasy of heaven after a brief
encounter with a Salvation Army lass, the children are ripe for
an illusion. So, when the older girl asks the startled man who
he is and he mumbles blankly as he falls in a faint, "Jesus
Christ!", she is awesomely convinced and informs the others
that " 'E has cum back to our barn."
From here on it is the three children--the
elder girl, a younger one and a boy of 6 who is absolutely the
most terrific little fellow we've ever seen in a film--taking
care of the vagrant, sneaking bread (and wine) out to him, keeping
it dark from their stolid father and their starchy aunt, but
at the same time letting the kids in the neighborhood know the
wonderful, awesome secret that they have the returned Jesus in
their barn.
The details of their reverence and excitement,
their respect and solicitude, are wonderfully genuine and humorous,
and they are handsomely acted and conveyed in a filmic design
of almost documentary sharpness under the fine direction of a
new hand at it, Bryan Forbes. There are so many brilliant touches,
so many simple and poignant parallels to the Biblical story of
Jesus, from His birth to His crucifixion, that a recount of them
is impractical. Their discovery is one of the joys to be had
from the film.
  Of course, you anticipate the ending. The
vagrant is a criminal fugitive, and his betrayal to the grown-ups
by the small boy is a most poignant consequence of the youngster's
basic doubts. (The man, whom the lad entrusts with his sick kitten,
lets it die.) And the end is so full of tenderness, beauty and
meaning that it must be seen.
Credit for this exceptional picture goes
to many: to Mr. Forbes and to Richard Attenborough, who produced
it; to Mary Hayley Bell, who not only wrote the story but is
the mother of Hayley Mills, who plays the older girl in what
is surely one of the most sturdy and eloquent performances of
a sensitive child ever done.
But little Alan Barnes, who plays the small,
garrulous boy as naturally as a kid throwing stones; Bernard
Lee, who plays the father; Alan Bates (seen here recently
in the play, "The Caretaker"), who imparts to the role
of the fugitive a most subtle blend of shabbiness and radiance;
Malcolm Arnold, whose musical score is a major asset to the picture,
and numerous others, children and grown-ups, all merit praise
and affection for giving us one of the most enjoyable and heartwarming
films we've ever seen.
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