MovieChat Forums > The Nanny (1966) Discussion > Sympathy for The Nanny?

Sympathy for The Nanny?


So I just watched the film for the very first time and absolutely loved it, one thing was bugging me though.
The day Susie dies (I think it was Susie) we see the story from two different angles - Joey and The Nanny.
Joey's version of the story is pretty short, the Nanny leaves, he plays with trains, his sister bugs him, he hears a bang, the Nanny returns home, all in real time, taking about 5-6 minutes.
The Nanny's version - She Taxis across town to meet a doctor who has just witnessed the Nanny's daughter's death. He has a go at her, she walks 'for miles' not necessarily meaning miles, but a big distance for her anyway, before returning home, at least an hour trip, more likely a couple.

The two stories simply don't match up, the time frames are all wrong.
My thoughts on solutions:
1) The Nanny's daughters death actually happened much longer ago, maybe when she was caring for Joey's mother. Something brought it back that afternoon, she took a short walk, returned home completely snapped and found Susie in the bath.
2) She's just crazy and made the whole thing up.

Thoughts?
Before we say Joey was just mis-remembering the events, lets remember that to say that we have to side with the Psychotic Nanny with a screw loose rather than the kid who was right all along.

Maybe I'm thinking about this too much.

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Another thing to remember is that Joey was 8 years old, and children don't process time in the same way that adults do, he could've been content playing with his trains and hadn't thought about how much time had passed.

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Another thing to remember is that Joey was 8 years old, and children don't process time in the same way that adults do, he could've been content playing with his trains and hadn't thought about how much time had passed.

That's very true. Adults tend to ruminate over things more than children.

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So I just watched the film for the very first time and absolutely loved it, one thing was bugging me though.
The day Susie dies (I think it was Susie) we see the story from two different angles - Joey and The Nanny.
Joey's version of the story is pretty short, the Nanny leaves, he plays with trains, his sister bugs him, he hears a bang, the Nanny returns home, all in real time, taking about 5-6 minutes.
The Nanny's version - She Taxis across town to meet a doctor who has just witnessed the Nanny's daughter's death. He has a go at her, she walks 'for miles' not necessarily meaning miles, but a big distance for her anyway, before returning home, at least an hour trip, more likely a couple.

The two stories simply don't match up, the time frames are all wrong.
My thoughts on solutions:
1) The Nanny's daughters death actually happened much longer ago, maybe when she was caring for Joey's mother. Something brought it back that afternoon, she took a short walk, returned home completely snapped and found Susie in the bath.
2) She's just crazy and made the whole thing up.

Thoughts?
Before we say Joey was just mis-remembering the events, lets remember that to say that we have to side with the Psychotic Nanny with a screw loose rather than the kid who was right all along.

Maybe I'm thinking about this too much.


No that's a really good point, their stories don't match up. I would say that I would have to believe Joey's story because when someone feels guilt ridden over a situation they tend to ruminate over and over. Joey feels no guilt because he did not murder Suzie, he feels only fear of his nanny...whom we see commit one murder already in a state of psychosis and attempted murder of Joey.

So Joey only remembers the facts of what happened. Nanny leaves. His sister came in, threatens to tattle. He tells her to get lost and she goes and plays in the bathtub. What I find odd...is how quickly nanny comes back. She's not gone for long, but in the nanny's mind, she thinks she was gone for hours!

I sympathized with both to an extent. I mean the nanny had become so fixated on her life taking care of other children that she neglected her own. She lost her mind when both her real daughter and surrogate (Suzie) died. I'm sure a part of her blamed Joey, but she knew it was her fault all along. So she was so guilt ridden that she over analyzed everything she did that day. Every minuscule detail, that's the mind of a guilt ridden person.

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Of course it took Nanny a while to travel from the Fanes's posh neighborhood to the slum where Nanny's daughter lay dead in her bed after a botched abortion. There was the confrontation with the doctor plus the shock of her daughter's death....I'm sure it threw Nanny into traumatic stress, and she probably DID walk for hours before returning to the Fanes's flat. She tried to return to her usual routine by drawing a bath for the children. Seeing Susie's poor dead body in the tub pushed Nanny's remnants of sanity 'round the bend.....Mind, however, that Susie may very well have died as a result of her fall into the tub, rather than Nanny accidentally drowning her. She then tried to cover up her bad deed (leaving the children alone) by drowning Joey as well. She could therefore blame Joey for both his own death and that of Susie by telling the Fanes that the children had been playing with boats in the bath and 'somehow' drowned. If the Fanes bought the story, that may have secured her position as housekeeper/cook and companion to Mrs. Fane.

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Why would falling into the bathtub kill his sister?

How long she was unconscious we don't know, but it seems likely that her death was by drowning.

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If an autopsy was done on Susy they would know if she drowned or if she died from head trauma, but they probably didn't do that. All the same, if she'd hit her head hard enough to kill her, wouldn't there be some physical evidence of that? If she'd fractured her skull or something in the fall, somebody would've picked up on that between the discovery and the funeral.

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she killed Pen and was about the kill Joey

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