The Night of the Hunter

1955 horror film

Rating: 20/20 (Jen: 16/20)

Plot: A shadowy preacher man, more than likely the titular hunter, rooms with a dude who hid 10, 000 bucks before his arrest. Once freed, the preacher man, even though he can clearly see that it's Shelley Winters, marries his widow in order to extract info about the money's hiding place from her two young children. They don't want to tell him where the money is, and he starts to get mad.

First, I don't know if that's a real poster or not, but it's awesome. This, out of perhaps any movie ever made, deserves an awesome poster. While looking for a poster to steal from somebody, I came across a blog put together by a guy named Lou Romano that I enjoyed. Here are some screenshots from The Night of the Hunter. This has been one of my favorite movies for a while, and I'm surprised it isn't already on the old blog here. And the main reason it's one of my favorites is because director Charles Laughton and cinematographer Stanley Cortez tell the story so well visually, and as anybody who's ever read this blog knows, I'm a sucker for the visuals. Mr. Romano's site shows off a few of the innumerable stills from this movie that could easily be hanging in a museum. Laughton, who directed only this, called this "a nightmarish sort of Mother Goose tale," and a nightmarish sort of Mother Goose tale just has to look a certain way. And this has that look. It's all about the interplay between light and shadows, a relationship that mirrors the contrast between "love" and "hate" on Harry Powell's knuckles, and the angles. I love how Robert Mitchum, playing one of the most evil characters in movie history, is often preceded by his own shadow. He's literally foreshadowed in a bunch of these scenes. It's most stunning when his silhouette appears on their bedroom wall, a shadow that makes no sense, by the way, when you see where Mitchum is standing and where the streetlight is positioned. It's not always Mitchum's shadow either; the first time the children encounter him, they're eclipsed by a shadowing "hand" in an absolutely stunning shot. And I love all these perspective shots, gigantic animals--and there are a lot of animals--as the children are rowing down an oily river, one shot that resembles shadow puppetry where Mitchum's riding a horse in the background that was accomplished by having a little person on a pony. At least I think I really read that and didn't dream about reading it. The movie starts audaciously enough with some disembodied children's heads in space, one kid on the far right really overdoing things. It winds up sort of book-ending the whole thing, but it's still a little weird and warns you ahead of time that you're about to see something a little different. Anyway, the imagery is indelible if that's the right word for it and the music, Walter Schumann's score but even the hymns sung by Mitchum or the stuff sung by the children, only enhances the experience. Mitchum's great at playing the type of bad guy you never really figure out, and I could watch him wrestle with his own hands in that silly scene over and over again. And who wouldn't want to marry a guy who has fights with his own hands, especially if that guy has a train for a penis like Mitchum has in this? He's a character you won't forget, especially moping around these impressionistic sets and shadows. Shelley Winters is close to awful, especially on her wedding night with some faux-fainting, but the fudge lady makes up for that. Oh, and the image of her character at the bottom of a lake is beautiful enough to make up for any flaw in this movie. Sorry for the spoiler, but you've already seen this. Kids from movies made during this time are often problematic. Billy Chapin is fine as the boy, but it's clear that Pearl gets her acting abilities from her mother. Little Sally Jane Bruce, 6 or 7 when this thing came out, wasn't in any other movies after this one. I guess if you're going to be in only one movie, you should make it as great as this one. I fucking love this movie!