Charles Laughton, the rotund, crisply elucidating English actor, directed one and only one movie. That film was "The Night of the Hunter", a weird, creepy thriller starring Robert Mitchum as a murderous preacher. Although considered a classic today, it was a box office failure at the time, and received poor reviews. Laughton was so disappointed that he never directed again.
The screenplay was written by James Agee, based upon the novel by Davis Grubb. It would be the last screenplay for Agee. He died of a heart attack in May 1955, just three months after the film's release. The story takes place during the Great Depression, and the economic hardship of the era is reflected in the poverty and desperation of the characters.
Harry Powell (Mitchum) is a drifter who has killed many women. He has the airs of a country preacher, but his religious beliefs have been wildly twisted into supporting his criminal self-interests. He is jailed for stealing a car, and he shares a cell with bank robber Ben Harper (Peter Graves). Harper is to be hanged for killing two men, but Powell learns that he has hidden $10,000 in stolen money somewhere on his property.
By the time Powell is freed, Harper has left a widow (Shelley Winters) and two young children. The oldest is John (Billy Chapin), a serious lad of about ten. His sister Pearl (Sally Jane Bruce) is about six. Powell arrives in town, puts on his preacher act, and weds the widow. When the children refuse to tell where the money is hidden, he begins to terrorize his new family.
Silent film star Lillian Gish appears about halfway through, playing a no-nonsense spinster raising a number of orphaned children. Her character, while mildly eccentric, is deeply religious. She provides a positive image of Christianity, helping to offset the negative implications of Mitchum's Preacher character.
Mitchum often played droopy-eyed, slow-talking heroes in films. But he could also play a menacing villain, and is very convincing both here and in "Cape Fear" (1962). Mitchum's Powell is purely evil, but what is truly creepy is his ability to put one over on the unsuspecting. His murderous intentions are buried beneath an engaging, Bing Crosby-styled persona. As was the case in "A Place in the Sun" and "Lolita". Shelley Winters plays a luckless, hapless, rejected woman.
Laughton's direction is often quirky. Especially strange is Winter's death scene, with her facing Mitchum's knife with the resignation of a willing human sacrifice. Laughton supposedly helped with the screenplay. I wonder if he was responsible for a surprisingly explicit speech by one of the supporting characters, who claims to have spent her married life "thinking about the canning" whenever her husband made love to her.
"The Night of the Hunter" is a very good film, but it may have become slightly overrated over the years. The tension is broken abruptly after the childrens' escape downriver. The film should end with Powell's capture, but it continues on needlessly for another ten minutes. Gish's saintly-but-tough character isn't completely believable. James Gleason's drunken fisherman character is abandoned. It also seems odd that John would throw the money at Powell upon his capture, after risking his own life and that of his sister for so long while protecting it. (70/100)
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