By Alan Herrmann
MOVIE CRITIC

Charles Laughton was a great British actor whose career spanned over four decades. He was nominated for three academy awards and won a best actor award for The Private Life of Henry VIII. Laughton also directed some theater productions, but only one film: The Night of the Hunter in 1955, starring Robert Mitchum and Shelley Winters.
Unfortunately, neither critics nor audiences liked the movie, finding it too weird and unsettling. Laughton was so disappointed with the film’s reception that he never directed another picture.
Thanks to people with more insight the film has become a classic, hailed by Mitchum as his favorite role – who also praised Laughton as his favorite director. Winters believed it was her most pensive and restrained role. Directors like Robert Altman, Spike Lee, Martin Scorsese, the Coen brothers, and Guillermo del Torro have cited the film as a major influence on their work. Stephen King referred to it as the scariest movie of all time.
James Agee and Laughton penned the script from a novel of the same name by Davis Grubb. The story is based on a real-life serial killer who preyed on widows and children in West Virginia around 1930 until he was caught, tried, and executed.
In the film, an ex-con travelling as a preacher named Harry Powell (Mitchum) is seeking a great deal of bank robbery cash from the widow and children of his former prison bunkmate who was hanged for murder. The false preacher sets out for the widow’s farm in West Virginia where he hopes to get his hands on the loot.
Willa the widow (Winters) is lonely, and the preacher easily charms her and weds her, only to become enraged when he discovers she knows little about the money. Her son John knows that his father hid the money in his sister’s doll, but his sister Pearl is ignorant of this fact. The preacher, unsure where the money is hidden, will go to great lengths to find it.
This is a very different type of noir. In fact, it could be seen as a hybrid between noir and Southern Gothic.
The rural West Virginia locale, heavy accents, grotesque characters, criminal behavior, and religious overtones fit the latter category to a tee. Cinematographer Stanley Cortez’s use of bold shadows, often tall like the German Expressionist style of the 1920’s – think Nosferatu or The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari – enhance the preponderance of evil as the preacher’s giant shadow looms over Willa like an ancient vampire.
Both photography and sets are dreamlike and unreal by design to emphasize the gothic danger while casting a fairy tale-like mood to emphasize the children’s journey to find safety.
One scene remains a shocker to this day, showing a young woman under water tied to a model T Ford, her blonde hair flowing yet intertwined with seaweed, her pale face calm despite a large, gaping wound in her throat like a fish’s mouth. This scene looked so convincing that people wondered how the actress could hold her breathe so long. It was actually just a very real looking dummy.
Walter Schumann’s haunting, lullaby music warns the viewer of the children’s peril. But in other parts of the film, the lullabies offer some hope. This is especially true when we see John and Pearl on the river in their small boat, feeling somewhat secure away from the violent preacher who stalks them from the shoreline.
Hymns are also used, and again, depending on the scene, they represent terror as much as religious fervor. When danger is imminent, particularly when Harry is lurking about, Schumann’s music takes on a louder, threatening tone as if it’s the harbinger of death.
For the children, hope comes in the form of an elderly woman named Rachel Cooper (Lilian Gish) who lives in a large old home where she cares for stray children. Gish, who was once one of the greatest film stars of the silent era, is perfect for the part.
On the surface she appears small and delicate. but she’s really a force to be reckoned with and will wield a shotgun to protect the children in her care. Here we see the clear battle between good and evil, where the false preacher moves about in shadows, his silhouette outside Rachel’s house. She waits on her porch (also in silhouette) rocking with a shotgun on her lap, the children safely inside.
At one point, Rachel and Harry both sing the classic hymn “Leaning on the Everlasting Arms.” Rachel does so with religious conviction while Harry, in his dark evangelical garb, sings it as though he is the righteous one.
At this point in the film, it is almost impossible to see the outcome. There are no spoiler alerts here, you’ll have to watch it to find out how it ends and see some of the other unforgettable scenes you won’t want to miss.
It's tragic that Charles Laughton never lived to see the eventual critical acceptance his film deserved. It leaves us to wonder what other marvelous films he might have made.
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