Otto Penzler ranks, analyzes, & celebrates the 106 greatest crime films of all-time. Catch up on the series and find new installments daily here.
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The Night of the Hunter (1955)
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TYPE OF FILM: Crime/Suspense
STUDIO: United Artists
PRODUCER: Paul Gregory
DIRECTOR: Charles Laughton
SCREENWRITER: James Agee
SOURCE: The Night of the Hunter, novel by David Grubb
RUNNING TIME: 93 minutes
PRINCIPAL PLAYERS:
Robert Mitchum…………………………………………………………….Preacher Harry Powell
Shelley Winters……………………………………………………………………….Willa Harper
Lillian Gish………………………………………………………………………….Rachel Cooper
Evelyn Varden………………………………………………………………………….Icey Spoon
Peter Graves………………………………………………………………………..…..Ben Harper
James Gleason……………………………………………………………………….Birdie Steptoe
Billy Chapin……………………………………………………………………………John Harper
Don Beddoe……………………………………………………………………………Walt Spoon
Sally Jane Bruce……………………………………………………………………….Pearl Harper
Gloria Castillo…………………………………………………………………………………Ruby
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DID YOU KNOW?
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Although generally regarded as one of the great American films, The Night of the Hunter was such a staggering failure at the box office that Charles Laughton’s first directorial effort was also his last. He was never again allowed to work behind the camera, so he resumed his position in front of it as one of filmdom’s greatest actors. Laughton, using decidedly European stylistic techniques, most notably German Expressionism, with one film became a tremendous influence on some of today’s most successful directors, including Martin Scorsese, just as Laughton in turn had been strongly influenced by Fritz Lang and Josef von Sternberg.
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THE STORY
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Unable to provide for his family in the Depression-era Midwest, Ben Harper commits a bank robbery and kills two people. Before the police can arrest him, he hides the $10,000 he stole in his daughter Pearl’s rag doll, swearing her and his son John to secrecy about the hiding place.
A preacher, Harry Powell, is arrested for stealing a car and is sent to prison. As Ben’s cellmate, he overhears him talking in his sleep about the money. Ben is executed. When Powell is released, he sets out to find Ben’s widow, Willa, and the stolen loot. When he arrives in town, he first ingratiates himself with Icey and Walt Spoon, proprietors of the diner and friends of Willa. He easily sweet-talks Willa into marriage, much to the displeasure of John, who distrusts him.
On their wedding night, Willa pretties herself with a negligee but, when she comes to bed, he rebuffs her and preaches to her about sinful lust. Powell asks Willa where the money is, but she truthfully swears she doesn’t know. He repeatedly attempts to get the children to tell him, especially impressionable little Pearl. But John holds her to the promise they made to their father. As Powell becomes more and more frustrated with his inability to find the stolen money, he kills Willa and chases the children, who barely manage to escape his violent attacks. They get to a little rowboat in the river just ahead of Powell’s grasp and float away while he steals a horse and slowly stalks them.
After a lengthy journey, the boat drifts ashore and the children are awakened by Rachel, who tells them to follow her home, where the kindly spinster has already taken in other stray children. The next day, Powell shows up at Rachel’s cottage, telling her that he is a preacher and the children’s father, but John says he isn’t their father, and Rachel adds that he’s no preacher either. When friendly smiles and charm fail to convince Rachel to give him the children, he angrily demands that she turn them over, but Rachel pulls out a shotgun and shoots at him. Screaming, wildly, he takes refuge in the barn, so Rachel calls the police, telling them that she has “something trapped in my barn.” The police arrive and drag him out of the barn, and John grabs the doll from his sister’s hands and wildly batters Powell with it as the bills fly around. In town, a mob gathers to string up the preacher, the loudest of the mob being Icey and Walt Spoon.
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This unrelievedly dark and suspenseful tale may have been the finest performance of Robert Mitchum’s long career, but he grew to hate it. The character was so unredeemably evil that it haunted Mitchum, and he grew increasingly uncomfortable being identified with it.
Director Charles Laughton had believed (probably correctly) that no other actor could so powerfully portray the psychopathic preacher who had LOVE tattooed on one had and HATE tattooed on the other. When Laughton called Mitchum to play the role, he exclaimed that he would play “a diabolical crud,” and Mitchum replied, “Present!”
Mitchum not only played one of the most searing film roles of all time, he helped Laughton with a task that the director despised and was unable to manage: the directing of children. Laughton apparently loathed the two principal child actors and was unable to communicate with them, while Mitchum, laid-back as always, had fun with them and got them to do whatever was needed.
James Agee was paid $30,000 to write the screenplay and died soon after it was completed. However, the script he turned in was more than twice as long as was filmable, so Laughton rewrote the entire motion picture, without any screen credit. This is attested to in the autobiography of Elsa Lanchester, Laughton’s wife.
The film was made on a very modest budget, so most of it needed to be shot in the studio. One of the most memorable images was Preacher Powell riding his horse on a ridge against the night sky. To make the silhouette appear to be in the distance of a deserted country setting within the confines of small studio, Laughton miniaturized the horse and rider. It wasn’t Robert Mitchum riding a horse, it was a midget riding a pony. In spite of now being regarded as a classic of American cinema, The Night of the Hunter was not nominated for a single Academy Award.
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BEST LINE
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Icey Spoon, Willa Harper’s busybody neighbor, talking to a group of women about Ben Harper’s death and the sense of loss felt by his widow and their obviously earthly relationship: “She’s mooning about Ben Harper, That wasn’t love. That was just flapdoodle…When you’ve been married forty years, you know all that don’t amount to a hill of beans. I’ve been married to my Walt that long, and I swear in all that time I just lied there thinking about my canning.”
