Night of The Hunter

Night of The Hunter-Baby Boomers Remember was truly a compelling, haunting, and frightening classic masterpiece thriller fantasy, and the only film ever directed by the great British actor Charles Laughton.

Night of The Hunter is considered an American Gothic, a biblical tale of greed and innocence.

Though it was pretty racy for 1955, it is filled with seduction, sin and corruption and was adapted for the screen by famed writer-author James Agee and Laughton, but without screen credit.

Although one of the greatest American films of all time, and deserves words like imaginatively-chilling, experimental, sophisticated work was idiosyncratic, film noirish, avante garde, dream-like expressionistic and strange…it was totally ignored and misunderstood at the time of its release and considered a critical and commercial failure.

Robert Mitchum gave what many consider his finest performance in a precedent-setting, unpopular, and truly terrifying role as the sleepy eyed, diabolical, dark souled, self-appointed serial killer and preacher with psychotic, murderous tendencies while in pursuit of $10,000 in cash. He was Harry Powell.

Lillian Gish played his opposite, a saintly good woman who provided refuge for the victimized children.

The disturbing, complex story was based on the popular, best-selling 1953 Depression-era novel of the same name by first-time writer Davis Grubb. Grubb set the location of his novel in the town of Moundsville, WV. Grubb lived in nearby Clarksburg as a teenager.

The story concerns an ex-convict Harry Powell who, acting on a story told to him by his cellmate, Harry cons the cell mate’s widow into marrying him in hopes that her children will tell him where their father hid the money from his last robbery.

After killing their mother, he embarks on a hunt for the children, who have figured out he is evil and are running from him.

Wiki Describes Night of The Hunter As The Following:

Night of the Hunter’s  plot was based on the true story of Harry Powers, who was hung in 1932 for the murders of two widows and three children in Moundsville, West Virginia.

Grubb explores the presentation of the American South in the aftermath of the American Civil War. He uses tropes of the Southern Gothic genre to explore issues such as social corruption and instability. The figure of the Preacher is a symbol of the corrupting social force of religion in the American South. While the disruption of the family unit points out the broken sense of Southern identity after the War.

Night of The Hunter is a great movie and not one I watch when I am alone…Robert Mitchum gives a great performance. It is worth watching and remembering.