The Night of the Hunter (1955)

• Year: 1955
• Released: 27 Jul 1955
• Country: United States
• Adwords: 2 wins
• IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0048424/
• Rotten Tomatoes: https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_night_of_the_hunter
• Metacritics: https://www.metacritic.com/movie/the-night-of-the-hunter-re-release
• Available in: 720p, 1080p,
• Language: English
• MPA Rating: Not Rated
• Genre: Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
• Runtime: 92 min
• Writer: Davis Grubb, James Agee, Charles Laughton
• Director: Charles Laughton
• Cast: Robert Mitchum, Shelley Winters, Lillian Gish
• Keywords: murder, prison, noir, money, theft,

	8.0/10
	99/100

The Night of the Hunter Storyline

It’s the Great Depression. In the process of robbing a bank of $10,000, Ben Harper kills two people. Before he is captured, he is able to convince his adolescent son John and his daughter Pearl not to tell anyone, including their mother Willa, where he hid the money, namely in Pearl’s favorite toy, a doll that she carries everywhere with her. Ben, who is captured, tried and convicted, is sentenced to death. But before he is executed, Ben is in the state penitentiary with a cell mate, a man by the name of Harry Powell, a self-professed man of the cloth, who is really a con man and murderer, swindling lonely women, primarily rich widows, of their money before he kills them. Harry does whatever he can, unsuccessfully, to find out the location of the $10,000 from Ben. After Ben’s execution, Harry decides that Willa will be his next mark, figuring that someone in the family knows where the money is hidden. Despite vowing not to remarry, Willa ends up being easy prey for Harry’s outward evangelicalism; she is a pious woman who feels she needs to atone for her sins which led to Ben doing what he did, especially as Harry presents himself as the preacher who worked at the prison and provided salvation to Ben before his death. Harry quickly figures out that John and Pearl know where the money is. Conversely, John doesn’t trust Harry, John who first tries not to show to Harry that he indeed does know where the money is, and then second constantly reminds a more-trusting Pearl of their promise to their now-deceased father. With Willa devoted to her new husband, John and Pearl need some other adult assistance in evading Harry’s veiled threats, an adult who not only can see the honesty and goodness in children but who can also see a true wolf in sheep’s clothing like Harry.

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The Night of the Hunter Movie Reviews

Breathtaking Imagery

Extraordinary, unparalleled, breathtaking … that’s how I would appraise the film’s visuals, from DP Stanley Cortez. The images are all in B&W, and many have a noir design straight out of German Expressionism. Sharp angles, high-contrast “hard” lighting, and deep shadows amplify form, or rather distort reality, and as such project human experience as an exaggeration of the emotional.

Some of the images in “The Night Of The Hunter” are so enthralling that they will live on in the collective mind as long as cinema exists. Who can forget that famous underwater scene wherein a dead woman’s body sits upright in a car with her hair flowing along the current like seaweed, accompanied by background music that is so dreamlike? One of my favorite images is the one wherein Willa Harper (Shelley Winters) lies in blissful repose on a bed as Harry Powell (Robert Mitchum) stands by a window in an unadorned room with angular walls that slope upward, as if in a church.

One of the most haunting, and famous, sequences has the two children, John and Pearl, in a rowboat, as they make a Homeric odyssey down a river, lorded over by giant spider webs, frogs, and rabbits. And then there’s that electrifying scene with Rachel Cooper (Lillian Gish) in silhouette, sitting in a chair, holding a shotgun, as Harry Powell sings “Leaning On The Everlasting Arms”. Cinematic brilliance extraordinaire!

Consistent with its expressionistic visuals, the story is presented from the POV of a child’s nightmare. John and Pearl symbolize innocence, and the bogeyman comes in the form of an adult, a godlike man who cons the gullible townsfolk including the children’s mom. Our good reverend Powell is less interested in saving souls than he is in finding all that loot stashed away somewhere. Thus, the film’s underlying theme is at least as relevant now as it was fifty years ago; the film has not aged one bit.

Production design is sparse, true to the film’s visual style and to the setting in Depression era West Virginia. The casting is perfect. Robert Mitchum has just the right look and voice for the part of Harry Powell. I like how he calls to John and Pearl … “chill-drenn?” Lillian Gish is well-suited to represent … reality.

And those two kids likewise are ideally cast. Love the way Pearl, with her round face and those rag-a-muffin curls refers to herself, in that Southern drawl, as “Pell”. And the film’s horror combines with humor in many scenes, one of which has “Pell” sitting on the ground with scissors in hand nonchalantly cutting up paper currency into paper dolls.

Acting is generally exaggerated, again consistent with what one would expect in a nightmare. Evelyn Varden, as Icey Spoon (love that name), hams it up in a gossipy, mother hen sort of way. And Shelley Winters effectively jitters her way through the film, ghostlike, her character lost in delusion.

The film’s original score is haunting and mournful, and could hardly set a more appropriate tone: “Dream little one, dream; dream my little one, dream; oh the hunter in the night fills your childish heart with fright; fear is only a dream; so little one dream”.

With its brilliant photography, its unpopular but deeply truthful theme, and its nightmarish story, Charles Laughton’s “The Night Of The Hunter” is high up on my list of twenty best films of all time.

Great in its time but doesn’t hold up so well

I give Robert Mitchum’s performance a 10. Every part of the film with him in it is perfect (or nearly so). The problem is that despite this, the film really bogs down when the plot centers only on the children or their rescuer (Lillian Gish). At times, Gish is GREAT as a spunky old woman determined to defeat the embodiment of evil in Mitchum, while at other times her role is just too syrupy and heavy-handed. It’s as if there were two films (one great and one poor) grafted together. The moments of action and suspense are great while the moralistic and preachy dialog later in the film serves to reduce the film’s impact. I would have much preferred the film if it were more heartless and film noir in its sensibilities.

Fantastic

I love film and have done since forever. Night of the Hunter is not quite in my all-time favourite movies, but it is a film I respect very highly. The only disappointment was the final ten minutes, which felt tacked on and didn’t suit the tone of the rest of the movie. Everything else though is fantastic. The story is compelling and managed to chill and shock me, the dialogue is both thoughtful and tense, the lullaby and opening sequence are hard to forget and Shelley Winters, Lillian Gish and Billy Chapin give fine performances. But I will remember Night of the Hunter always for the marvellous cinematography that remains interesting and and beautifully constructed while enhancing the mood, Charles Laughton’s superb direction in one of his best achievements in either acting or directing and Robert Mitchum’s tremendous lead performance(perhaps even a career best). All in all, a fantastic film if one I highly appreciate rather than adore. 9/10 Bethany Cox