The Night Of The Hunter- A Cautionary Tale
Written by Joe D on March 31st, 2008
Have you ever seen The Night Of The Hunter? The film directed by Charles Laughton, starring Robert Mitchum and featuring Lilian Gish and Shelly Winters? It’s a great film, considered by many critics to be one of the top 50 films of all time. It is a beautiful, poetic, unique creation. There are sequences unlike any other in Cinema. For example when the children are traveling by rowboat, just floating down the river at night and there are all these shots of animals, frogs, owls, rabbits, spiders, in the foreground and the skiff with the children floating by in the background, accompanied by a beautiful voice singing a melancholy folk/ nursery rhyme motif.
It’s a gorgeous, deep sequence that transports you to a magical place, sort of a glancing back at the mystery of childhood, the psychic spaces we inhabit as children when we are closer to the elemental , to nature, to animals, to magic. We accept the arcane without questioning.
And the acting is great too. Mitchum said Laughton was his favorite director because he loved everything he did and he would tell him so.
Robert Mitchum as the Murderous Preacher, Harry Powell, with LOVE and HATE tattooed on his fingers
Shelly Winters is great as well, it’s funny here she is playing a mother who is married by a man whose real target is her children, a role she would repeat in Stanley Kubrick’s Lolita.
She studied Acting in Charles Laughton’s class
Lillian Gish is superb and it’s wonderful that she appears in this film. A lot of the imagery seems to come directly out of silent film, a kind of stark poetic imagery, powerful visuals that remind you of Murnau, or Lang or even Caligari. She spoke of the making of the film in a reverential manner. “I have to go back as far as DW Griffith,” wrote Gish, “to find a set so infused with purpose and harmony. There was not ever a moment’s doubt as to what we were doing or how we were doing it. To please Charles Laughton was our aim. We believed in and respected him. Totally.”
The film was shot by the great Stanley Cortez, camerman for Orson Welles on his follow up to Citizen Kane, The Magnificent Ambersons ( Another Cautionary Tale in a future post). The thing is this, when Night Of The Hunter was released, it flopped, didn’t make money, although the critics were respectful, if somewhat baffled.
This devastated Laughton. It’s obvious the man poured his heart and soul into this film and when no one liked it he was shattered. ” I’ll never direct another film.” he said and he never did. He died six years later without knowing his film would one day be called a masterpiece. So here’s to you Charles Laughton, up there in Film Heaven. Captain Bligh, Quasimodo, Dr. Moreau,Gracchus Galileo. We on planet Earth Salute You!
Cheerio
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It was a pity indeed that he didn’t direct any more films, even more when you think how easy now is for some actors to direct films which aren’t particularly interesting.
Laughton was working with writer Norman Mailer in the adaptation of his novel “the Naked and the dead” to be his next film as director, but the failure of Night of the Hunter kept him from directing anything more.
Another project he had for other films (had he kept on directing) was to adapt one of Thomas Wolfe’s novels.
Alas.
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I just ordered the book about the making of Night Of The Hunter. Heaven and Hell to Play With: The Filming of The Night of the Hunter by Preston Neal Jones, I’m really looking forward to reading it, also I just read something about an article in Confidential magazine about a party at Paul Gregory’s house (with Laughton present) where they claimed Mitchum stripped naked and poured ketchup all over himself. Mitchum sued and won. It I can find the link I’ll post it. Thanks for the info on Naked and The Dead, what a film that would have been with Laughton at the helm!
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I hope you like the book: I did. A lot.
I could say, in short, tat prior to that i though I knew a fair number of things about CL (having read a lot of stuff related to him), and this book was so fresh and surprising at many levels, it opened new perspectives as much as the Simon Callow biography did. Also, you will realize, it’s THE book on the film (without disregarding other very worthy books around). Very well documented. truly, the dream of every Hunter-o-phile ;D… Well, IMHO
Re the “Confidential” Mag item: yes, I’ve heard about that story XD, still, I’d take anything coming from that source with a pinch of salt (even if I believe Mitchum capable of this and of wilder stuff, lol)
Re: Naked and The Dead. Stay tuned. I have a number of pending matters to deal with in “Rooting for Laughton”, and there is one item relating to that film.
Can’t say more, for the moment. But it’s of the “not seen before” genre ;D
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This film is very nice. I think this very effective to babies.
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This is really a nice film to watch.
I suggest all my friends to watch this movie.
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I’ve seen people with those love/hate tatoos on their fingers for years a sort of positive/negative value thing. I never knew where they came from. I love Mitchum. Some how I’ve missed this film. Thank you for telling about it: I’m looking forward to seeing it.