In this golden age of home viewing, the Criterion Collection still provides some of the best editions of the best movies ever released, usually with a rich selection of extras and often including audio commentaries (a feature they pioneered, and perhaps the greatest gift ever to film students and cinephiles alike). This column features one Criterion release per week, based on where my interests lead me and what’s available from my local public library.
I’ve been watching a lot of first films lately, but The Night of the Hunter qualifies in an even more specific category: it was director Charles Laughton’s first and last film. There are probably a lot of films in that category that are best forgotten but there’s some interesting ones as well. To take one example, Herk Harvey’s Carnival of Souls, which was certainly his first and last theatrically-released feature film, although he directed many industrials before and after it bombed. Another notable first-and-last film is Tom Stoppard’s Rosenkrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, which won the Golden Lion at the 1990 Venice Film Festival. That’s not bad company to be in, even if less stellar efforts like Harold P. Warren’s Manos: The Hands of Fate are also members of the club.
The story of The Night of the Hunter comes from a novel by Davis Grubb, which drew on the true story of Harry Powers, executed in 1932 for the murder of two widows. Screenwriter James Agee kept the setting (Depression era West Virginia) but tweaked the villain’s name, so Harry Powers becomes Harry Powell (Robert Mitchum). The role is a wonderful vehicle for Robert Mitchum, who delivers up a delicious performance as a serial killer who passes himself off as a preacher, and who misses no chance to perform his favorite set piece involving tattoos on his knuckles spelling out “hate” and “love.” If that bit seems familiar, it’s probably because it has been referenced by both Spike Lee’s Do The Right Thing and The Simpsons.
Ben Harper (Peter Graves), desperate to provide for his family, robs a bank and kills two people in the process. While awaiting execution, he shares a cell with Powell, who’s in for auto theft, and talks in his sleep enough that Powell figures the money must still be held by his family. Upon release, Powell wastes no time targeting them, marrying Harper’s widow Willa (Shelly Winters, stuck in a role that makes her appear to have subnormal intelligence) then disposing of her when it becomes clear she doesn’t know where the money is. Powell then turns his attention to Willa’s children John (Billy Chapin) and Pearl (Sally Jane Bruce), aged 10 and 5 respectively, and doesn’t bother being subtle about what he wants and what he’s willing to do to get it.
John and Pearl take off in a john boat, drifting down the Ohio River as Powell pursues them on horseback. This multi-day sequence is the heart of the film, highlighting the children’s innocence and vulnerability through insets of prey animals and beautifully-lit night shots placing them within the natural world, while Harry hovers above them like a demonic predator just waiting for his chance to pounce. Fortunately, John and Pearl find shelter with Rachel Cooper (Lillian Gish), who takes in stray children and raises them through a combination of tough love and Bible stories. She also keeps a shotgun at the ready and, unlike most of the adult characters in the film, sees right through Powell’s brand of BS. If you’re fond of allegories, Rachel represents true religion and Powell the opposite, and it’s delightful to see them doing battle, most creatively in a duet of the hymn “Leaning on the Everlasting Arms.”
The Night of the Hunter wouldn’t work without the Expressionist-tinged cinematography of Stanley Cortez, who creates just the right degree of visual unreality to combine the fable-like story with the realistic surroundings in which it takes place. Working with art director Hilyard M. Brown, Cortez used a variety of techniques to create some amazing shots that work perfectly well as still pieces of art. Walter Schumann’s soundtrack, which mixes conventional underscoring with original songs that sound like folk tunes and a well-known hymn, also helps signal the audience that they’re entering a space of heightened reality rather than watching just another action-adventure tale.
The Night of the Hunter bombed with both audiences and critics upon first release, and I can sort of see why. Many people go to the movies the way they go to [insert name of favorite fast food chain here]: to have a predictable experience that will deliver the anticipated pleasures without too much departure from their previous experiences. Critics of the day were not generally film scholars (it’s rumored that some were transferred over from the sports desk) and may well have trimmed their opinions to match what they thought were those of their readers. Fortunately, Night of the Hunter didn’t disappear: instead, it acquired a cult following, was regularly played in revival houses, and by the 1970s had been rehabilitated as film worthy of appreciation and study. | Sarah Boslaugh
Spine #: 541
Technical details: 93 min.; B&W; screen ratio 1.66:1; English.
Edition reviewed: Blu-ray (2 discs)
Extras: audio commentary with second-unit director Terry Sanders, film critic F.X. Feeney, archivist Robert Gitt, and author Preston Neal Jones; a making-of documentary including outtakes where Laughton’s directions to the actors are audible, introduced by Robert Gitt and Leonard Maltin; documentary featuring interviews with producer Paul Gregory, Sanders, Feeney, Jones, and author Jeffrey Couchman; an interview with Simon Callow, author of Charles Laughton: A Difficult Actor; clip from the Ed Sullivan Show; episode of the BBC show Moving Pictures; archival interview with cinematographer Stanley Cortez; a selection of sketches by novelist Davis Grubb; a booklet with essays by critics Terrence Rafferty and Michael Sragow; and the film’s trailer.
Fun Fact: Davis Grubb studied art in college, and Laughton incorporated some of his sketches into the storyboards for this film.
Parting Thought: In portraying practically every adult in John and Pearl’s world other than Rachel as stupid, useless, or positively evil, did Laughton mean to anticipate a convention that has since become commonplace in children’s fiction?
