Widow Waster (The Night Of The Hunter (DVD))

Member Name: MALU

Product:	The Night Of The Hunter (DVD)
Date:	18/05/07 (245 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: grim thriller, brilliant actors

Disadvantages: none

(film only review)

A group of children playing hide-and-seek on a farm find a dead woman lying in a barn.

A preacher, Rev. Harry Powell, (Robert Mitchum) is driving along country roads, singing hymns and talking to God. “There are things you do hate, Lord. Perfume-smellin' things, lacy things, things with curly hair.“ And then, “God, I‘m tired, there are too many of them, I can‘t kill the world.“

A man, Ben Harper, (Peter Graves) comes running to his house clutching 10.000 $ in his hand, he‘s just robbed a bank, killed two people and must hide the money before the police come. He stuffs it into his daughter‘s doll and makes the children swear not to tell anyone, not even their mother. “I got tired of seein' children roamin' the woodlands without food, children roamin' the highways in this here Depression, children sleepin' in old abandoned car bodies in junk heaps. And I promised myself that I'd never see the day when my young-uns had want.“

This unusual way of providing for the children’s future takes him straight to the gallows, of course, during his last days he shares a cell with the preacher who’s been condemned to 40 days in prison for car theft. The latter finds out that the money is still hidden and he decides to do what he’s good at once he‘s out of prison and his cell mate has been hanged. He sucks his way into the hearts of the people of Willa Harper’s village, wins her and her little girl over - nine-year-old John remains stubborn and hostile. What is going to happen, is clear and I’m not spoiling the plot pointing it out, after all, we’ve known from the beginning that Powell is a homicidal maniac. At the end of the film we’ll learn that Willa Harper is his 25th victim.

He then concentrates on the children. They’re too young and innocent to fool him for long, especially four-year-old Pearl. When Powell accosts her, “Now just tell me. Where's the money hid?“, she blurts out, “But I swore I promised John I wouldn't tell.“ When Powell physically attacks the children, he becomes the wolf and they the lambs, they succeed in getting into a boat and escape floating down the river. The question if Powell can get them in the end and what he‘ll do to them if he does, gives the film its suspense, but it is not only this that makes it outstanding, it‘s the way it‘s made that does.

Director Charles Laughton had it shot in black and white although in 1955 colour was already widely used, but the ominous and menacing atmosphere comes across much better this way. Before the children see Powell, a long shadow announces his approach , a fisherman’s hook gets stuck and when he peers into the water, he sees Willa Harper sitting in her car, throat cut, with her nightgown floating, her long hair undulating in the water. When the children glide along the nightly river, creatures of the dark watch them from the bank, a big toad is shown in close-up. I’ve seen the same in the Italian film I Am Not Scared from 2007, director Gabriele Salvatores also uses close-ups of night creatures to symbolise a boy’s angst, I’m convinced that he got the idea from The Night Of The Hunter. I’ve read that many more directors have been influenced by this film, but I’m not a cineaste, I don’t know many films and therefore can’t tell you more.

When the children find shelter in Rachel Cooper’s (Lillian Gish) house, a pious spinster who takes in orphans, we see an owl sitting in a tree and a rabbit in the garden, then the owl flaps its wings and we hear the shriek of the rabbit. There isn’t much scenery or frilly decoration to divert our attention, the shots are well composed and the imagery is thus very impressive. Thinking back, many images come to my mind and I can still feel the eerie atmosphere. I’m sure that if I had seen this film as a child, I would have had many sleepless nights!

Robert Mitchum in the role of the fake preacher is brilliant, later in his life he said that Charles Laughton was his favourite director and that The Night Of The Hunter was his favourite movie ever. He was very eager for the role, when he auditioned and Laughton described the character as "a diabolical shit", Mitchum promptly answered, “Present!“ Thinking of him his hands come to mind at once with the letters L O V E and H A T E tattooed on the knuckles, wringing his hands dramatically he demonstrates the fight between good and bad and tells his story in a way that his audiences can only gasp. As all the people he meets stare at his hands, he always has an opener for his sermons and he‘s really good at them.

The two children are also wonderful actors (Billy Chapin and Sally Jane Bruce), child actors behaving naturally in front of the camera must be especially praised. Laughton despised children and so it fell to Robert Mitchum to direct them, he did it well. Lillian Gish‘s performance as the embodiment of goodness (in contrast to the preacher‘s evilness) must be praised as well. I don‘t know how the people in rural America talked in the 1930s, for me the language sounds odd, very stylised, this and the many biblical quotes transport the story away from everyday life.

Unfortunately the spectators in 1955 weren‘t able to appreciate the quality of the film, it flopped critically and commercially, they were shocked and repelled by its ‘phantasmagoric, overheated style in which German expressionism, religious hysteria, fairy-tale fantasy (of the Grimm-est variety), and stalker movie were brought together in a furious boil‘ (amazon.com). Laughton was so disappointed that he vowed never to direct a film again - and he kept his word. Nowadays the film is considered a masterpiece, the only one of its kind.

Recommended if you have a taste for something special.

---


Runtime 93 min.
Country: USA
Language: English
Colour: Black and White
Sound Mix: Mono
Certification UK: X (original rating)

RRP 12.99 GBP
Amazon Price 5.97

Summary: an insane preacher stalks children to get their money