Rapture

Agnes is fifteen and lives in a house looking out to sea on the coast of Brittany, seeing nobody. Her father is a retired judge who keeps her away from the world. Agnes builds a scarecrow in the garden. One day Joseph, an escaped convict, arrives at the farm and her father takes him in. Agnes takes the man for the scarecrow she made, come to life. John Guillermin's film is not a thriller but a story of waking: the collision between the girl opening onto the world and the father trying to keep her shut in. When Joseph and Agnes grow close the father steps in, and the thing arrives somewhere nobody wanted. Patricia Gozzi plays Agnes; Melvyn Douglas is the father and Dean Stockwell the convict. The film drew no attention when it came out and was unavailable for a long time; it was rediscovered later and is counted among the most overlooked works of the sixties.