Let me tell you the story of love and hate (The Night Of The Hunter (DVD))

Member Name: moronboy

Product:	The Night Of The Hunter (DVD)
Date:	13/08/00 (28 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Everything

Disadvantages: None

It's almost impossible to describe the all-embracing weirdness of Charles Laughton's only film as director. Ostensibly a crime film, with Robert Mitchum as a psychopathic preacher / killer hearing from cellmate Peter Graves about some buried loot, and getting out to marry his widow (Shelly Winters) and menace his kids until he finds out where the money is, it has a weird, dreamlike texture, with straight images of nature and light versus the almost supernatural evil represented by Mitchum.

All the performances, from the kids, Dorothy Gish as the angelic old lady, and Winters as the doomed wife are excellent, but they're in the shadow of Mitchum, in probably the best role of his career (which is saying something). With love and hate tattooed on his knuckles, prayers on his lips and murder in his heart, he is the very embodiment of evil, whose very presence threatens the existence of innocence as embodied by Gish and the kids.

It's very funny for much of the film with very little onscreen threat (but massively implied by the look in Mitchum's eyes), and at the same time, absolutely terrifying. Laughton's direction is like a film-noir fairytale with elements of surrealism. Like I said, hard to describe, but absolutely unique and essential. However you get to see 'Night of the Hunter', do it soon. It's a masterpiece.

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