Night of the Hunter (1955)

The only film directed by actor Charles Laughton, Night of the Hunter (based on the novel by Davis Grub) is set amid the water front towns of the Ohio River during the Great Depression. Robert Mitchum is a traveling preacher of sorts, but really an abominable monster, a cruel and manipulative blue beard and living metaphor for spiritual abuse. In prison for stealing a car Mitchum is cell mates with a man (Peter Graves) who killed two people and stole $10,000 dollars which was never recovered. Gathering that the money was stashed secretly among the man’s family, Mitchum seeks them out after his release, ingratiates himself with the local community as ‘a man of God’ and gains a spiritual control over the mans wife (Shelly Winters). Her husband having been executed for his crime Mitchum and the widow marry, but when she figures out the real reason he married her (to get the money) the Reverend slashes her throat, ties her up to her model T, and lets it go into the river. The two children (Billy Chapin and Sally Jane Bruce are Tim Burtonish and memorable) escape from their step father on a little boat they take down the river, at this point all are aware that the $10,000 is stashed in the girls doll. The pair now travel by night, desperate to escape the unrelenting pursuit of their wicked stepfather, 'the Hunter'.

Often surreal, vaguely dream-like, this is an unusual horror story, replete with animal and biblical metaphors. Mitchum anticipates his later performance in Cape Fear and is at his terrifying best (1). The films visual style (mega-kudos to Stanley Cortez) is remarkably strong, even overwrought, and heavily influenced by silent cinema (as if to drive the latter point home Lillian Gish is cast). Stylistically this is almost the nexus of film, Muranu is here, as well Hawks, Ford and any number of lesser studio system directors, the influence on David Lynch is heavily evident throughout, and it also reminds of the rather cinematic late HBO program Carnivale. All together though a singular entry in the cannon of film, tense action plus a semesters worth of film school. Grade: A

1. Interestingly Shelly Winters role also prefigures her later performance as a desperate widow turned obsessive bride in Lolita.