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Turtles in Movies   The Innocents (1961)   Spoiler Alert ! Some of these pictures and descriptions may give away plot details that you might not want to know before watching the film.   This is a ghost story based on the Henry James novel "The Turn of the Screw" that is set in a mansion in England during the Victorian era. It appears that the spirits of the former governess, Miss Jessel, and a valet she was involved with, Peter Quint, have possessed two children. The girl Flora has a pet tortoise. When Miss Giddens, the children's new governess played by Deborah Kerr, first arrives at the estate and meets the young girl Flora, Flora asks her if she is afraid of reptiles because she wants to show her the pet tortoise named Rupert she keeps in a pocket of her dress. Later Flora asks Miss Giddens if tortoises can swim, then takes Rupert out of the water at the edge of a lake and dries him off. Finally, during a climactic conversation in the greenhouse between Miss Giddens and Flora's brother Miles, he becomes so angry that he takes the tortoise, which he has been holding in his hand, and throws it through a window pane. We see the ghostly face of Peter Quint on the glass before it breaks. A live tortoise (or probably more than one) is used in the movie, but I don't know what species. There is a lot of symbolism in this story. One interpretation is that the ghosts represent the children's repressed memories of terrible things they experienced involving the now-dead servants. The tortoise (which hides in a thick shell to avoid danger) is a symbol for this repression. Miles throws the tortoise (a symbol of repression) and smashes the "ghost" that is responsible for his repression, yelling Quint's name to Miss Giddens.