The Night of the Hunter (1955)

Tells a fascinating and unsettling true story, and does so well, without pretending to have all the answers.

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Robert Mitchum singing "Leaning on the Everlasting Arms" is just about one of the creepiest things on film! And his silhouetted outline is another! Dang, that man can play a bad guy! And this time he's a bad preacher terrorizing two children! Yikes! And Lillian Gish makes her character, Rachel Cooper, come alive as his opposite! It's a good movie, mostly due to Mitchum, but it does have some issues with choppy story telling and/or film editing. But the overhead shots are pretty cool for an older film, and overall, this is was a pleasure to watch! And those LOVE/HATE tattoos on the preacher's knuckles are creepy as heck! As is this quote, my final thought on the film: " I can hear you whisperin' children, so I know you're down there. I can feel myself gettin' awful mad. I'm out of patience children. I'm coming to find you now." eeeeee.....

Charles Laughton, better known as an actor, only ever directed one film in his life. That being The Night of the Hunter, where a small town husband commits a bank robbery, in the process killing two people. He gets caught, but before that he assists his children in hiding the money and swears them to secrecy. In the prison, awaiting hanging, he accidentally reveals to a corrupt preacher the fact that the kids are in the know. The man gets hanged, but the preacher is released, and he promptly sets out to woo the widow and squeeze the hiding place of the money from the children.Laughton was heavily influenced by the German expressionism style of film making and it shows. Heavy shadows, sharp silhouettes, Gothic imagery and stylized dialogue are the order of the day. The film even opens with the detached head of an old woman floating in space, quoting Bible to a bunch of children. Or rather their heads, also floating in space.And I have to be frank, it's more corny than impressive. You get the idea that Laughton likes this art style, but is not fully able to pull it off. The film is filled with artistic touches, but most of them cause the story to flow erratically. Granted, there are also some truly beautiful shots, especially when Laughton plays with silhouettes, but I was still pulled out of the story way too often.Full props to Robert Mitchum as the preacher Harry Powell. He has one of the best voices I've ever heard in cinema, and even though the character he plays is one of the more over the top men of cloth I've ever seen, he almost manages to pull it off, which is a small miracle in and on itself.All in all the film definitely has an identity. Personally I didn't much care for it, but I can see why some people hail this as a masterpiece. It dances just at that razor edge where it could be seen as something unique and daring, rather than presumptuous.

Not a bad thriller, but not a great one either. There are some creepy moments in this movie to be sure, and Robert Mitchum terrorizing two little kids will make you cringe or maybe have you urging them to run. The shot director Charles Laughton captures of Shelley Winters in the lake is excellent, and Mitchum's 'L-O-V-E' on the knuckles of one hand with 'H-A-T-E' on the knuckles of the other is iconic. Oh, and it was fantastic to see 62-year-old Lillian Gish, who turns in a suitably feisty performance.On the other hand, Laughton's direction is heavy-handed and clunky at times, and there are plot moments that just don't seem quite right. The acting ranges from poor to so-so, Mitchum included (though he certainly is a handsome fellow), and the soundtrack is too intrusive, annoyingly so in the jaunty bits. I hated the ending, which breaks out clichés like a torch-wielding mob and overdone Biblical verse. The movie was disturbing to audiences in 1955, likely because of the cruelty and evil shown in a man of the cloth, which made it not well received and caused Laughton to never direct again. I find it decent and worth seeing, but a little dated and lacking real horror.

I don't quite remember when I heard about this movie but it might have been just about the same time I found out who Robert Mitchum was, that is, my teen years. Those beautiful years that will never come back and that taught me so many things, showed me there was some American actor whose name was worth remembering. Growing up in the early 90s with no Internet didn't give you much of a chance to watch movies from previous decades. Still, the name found its way into my memory and hasn't move from there. It wasn't up until some years ago that I came across these movie at a public library. Mitchum was on the cover, all black and white, his eyes staring at you. Bang! It rang a bell almost straight away. I took the movie home and watched it the next day.The Night of the hunter is the story of a priest brilliantly performed by Robert Mitchum with a taste for not so holy pleasures. The storyline is one of mystery. Before being handcuffed and taken away by the police a father dressed in rags hides 10000 dollars. So far..so good but for one mistake: he had told their children where the money was hidden. Meanwhile, the priest comes along. The first look we have of him could not be more indicative of his personality traits. Driving around in his car, looking up into the sky and talking to god. You can tell straight away just judging by the look of his face that Mitchum lives up to the highest expectations. Given a character as cold-blooded as ice, Mitchum repertoire of expressions and gestures has room to shine. On top of it all, it's the fact that whenever that he has to keep up a reputation as a normal priest would do. That's when you know Mitchum deserves a place in Hollywod's Eden. The transition between merciless bastard and middle age respectable man is so smooth that you'd think he does so effortlessly.