NFR Project: “The Night of the Hunter”
Dir: Charles Laughton
Scr: James Agee
Pho: Stanley Cortez
Ed: Robert Golden
Premiere: July 26, 1955
92 min.
This haunting, barely redeemed nightmare of a film is a Southern Gothic horror story/fairy tale that registers as the only directorial outing of actor Charles Laughton. It’s an extraordinary movie that makes me wonder what other wonders Laughton might have produced if he had been given the chance.
Read Peter Rainer’s comprehensive essay on this entry here at the National Film Registry.
The story is shot plainly and given a heavily shadowed, storybook-like illumination filled with resonant images. We are introduced to the story by Mrs. Cooper (Lillian Gish), who speaks to us suspended in the starry sky. She is telling a group of children a story, and she warns of wolves in sheep’s clothing – and the camera swivels down to earth and shows us the deranged and murderous “preacher,” Harry Powell (Robert Mitchum) in flight. He likes to kill widows and steal their money and belongings. He converses with God, convinced that his homicidal impulses are blessed by Him.
Powell has a complex about sex. He sits with the crowd at a burlesque show, inwardly disapproving of the goings-on there. (His switchblade knife protrudes its blade from his pocket as he watches – an obscene erection.) He is nabbed by the police for stealing a car and goes off to jail.
We move on to the children John and Pearl, whose father Ben Harper (Peter Graves) has killed two men and made off with $10,000. He is hunted down by the police, but he manages to hide the money in Pearl’s doll. He makes John swear to protect Pearl and to never reveal the location of the money, then is hauled away to jail.
In jail, Powell and Harper bunk together. Powell tries to get Harper to tell where the money is, to no avail. Harper is hanged – and when Powell is released, he heads down to Harper’s place to find the money. Flashing in and out of bouts of anger, Powell harasses and cajoles the children, trying to find out where the money is. He courts John and Pearl’s mother Willa (Shelley Winters), mouthing sanctimonious sentiments that fool all the adults, but not the children.
Powell and Willa marry; Powell withholds sex from here and convinces her that she is a woeful sinner. She takes his condemnation to heart, and testifies at his revival meetings. She prepares herself for him with prayer at night, but he cuts her throat and sinks her body in the river.
He takes control of the children and torments them into confessing where the money is. However, the children escape him via the river and float downstream in a skiff. Finally, they wash up at the home of Mrs. Cooper, a saintly but tough woman who takes in stray children. Powell follows them and finds them, but Cooper holds him off with a shotgun. Powell returns at night to kill everyone and grab the money, but Cooper shoots him. He hides in the barn and is rousted out by the police. Upon his arrest, John inadvertently reveals the money.
Powell is tried and found guilty. A lynch mob comes after him, and he barely escapes a necktie party. The children settle into life at Mrs. Cooper’s, and enjoy Christmas with her.
Laughton creates a mythic dream world, shooting a majority from the viewpoint of the children, turning us into their accomplices. They get a crash course in the battle between good and evil, and good wins out – this time.
The NFR Project is one writer’s attempt to review all the films listed in the National Film Registry in chronological order. Next time: Oklahoma!
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