[73] It is among the top ten in the BFI list of the 50 films you should see by the age of 14. Shelley Winters . . In 1975, he won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism. "[25], Agnes Moorehead, Grace Kelly, and Betty Grable were all considered for the role of Willa Harper. But most important, there is frock-coated Harry Powell himself. Finally, John and Pearl have their first Christmas together with Rachel and their new family. [55] A recurring musical device involves the preacher making his presence known by singing the traditional hymn "Leaning on the Everlasting Arms". [71], Roger Ebert wrote, "It is one of the most frightening of movies, with one of the most unforgettable of villains, and on both of those scores, it holds up ... well after four decades. Lillian Gish . This was the only film directed by the actor Charles Laughton. [citation needed], The director of photography was Stanley Cortez, who also shot Orson Welles' 1942 film The Magnificent Ambersons. Institute by Kevin Jack Hagopian, Senior Lecturer in Media Studies Rev. [11], At first Grubb was being considered to write the screenplay himself, but the studio wanted to hire someone with experience writing for films. But what the normally astute Agee mistook for disengagement was a romanticism so arch, so fully committed to a spirit of ennui that the screen had simply never seen its like before. . Yes, During his Fortune days, Agee was once found hanging upside down out of his window in the Chrysler building many hundreds of feet above the ground, while a portable record player pounded out Beethoven at earsplitting volume. Mitchum is one of the great icons of the second half-century of cinema. James Gleason . . “Charles finally had very little respect for Agee. . looks as artificial as a Christmas card scene, the family's house with its movie world outside conventional realism, Laughton gave it a timelessness. [74], In 1992, the United States Library of Congress deemed The Night of the Hunter to be "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant", and selected the film for preservation in its National Film Registry. [18], Laughton's initial thought after reading the novel was to cast himself in the role of the preacher, but Gregory convinced him that no studio would finance a film unless they cast someone else. [6] Powell eventually marries Willa. . [15] Throughout 1954, Gregory worked with the Production Code Administration to change the script to meet the guidelines of the Production Code. was the word "fear” And in which hand he held his fate was never clear”. 20. night! . of a condemned man (Peter Graves), who has hidden $10,000somewhere around his . Now they slump down, with their heads back, and eat candy and popcorn. . Charles them implacably on the shore; this beautifully stylized sequence uses the logic NYS WRITERS INSTITUTE Man”: "On his right hand Billy'd tattooed the word "love” and on his left hand [45] RCA Victor was impressed by the score, so in 1955 they released a soundtrack with Schumann's score and Laughton narrating an abridged version of the story, also written by Grubb. critical and commercial failure long overshadowed by his acting career. Even those — Kevin Hagopian, Penn State University. The way Mitchum plays Harry, towering, fulminating, and immanently catastrophic, we are all standing in the quaking shoes of the two children whose lives are in such mortal danger. For his first And soon the children In a 2007 listing of the 100 Most Beautiful Films, Cahiers du cinéma ranked The Night of the Hunter No. a set so obviously artificial it could have been built for a completely [79], In 1974, film archivists Robert Gitt and Anthony Slide retrieved several boxes of photographs, sketches, memos, and letters relating to the film from Laughton's widow Elsa Lanchester for the American Film Institute. [36] Laughton hired Terry Sanders as second unit director in order to scout and shoot the river scenes because he had recently directed an Academy Award-winning short film A Time Out of War, which mostly took place on a river. both remembered that Mitchum was invaluable as a help in working with the two the public rejected it, and the studio had a much more expensive Mitchum Willa Harper (Shelley Winters), and two children, John (Billy Chapin) and the . The novel and film draw on the true story of Harry Powers, who was hanged in 1932 for the murder of two widows and three children in Clarksburg, West Virginia. During the all-night standoff, Rachel shoots and wounds Powell as she traps him in her barn house before calling the police. . Powell manages to win the town's trust, and only John is distrustful of him. Following Powell's sentencing at Moundsville, with John as a witness, Rachel takes him and the other children away as a bereaved Icey leads a lynch mob to take Powell from the police station. . strange angles inside and out looks too small to live in, and the river becomes Charles Laughton's "The Night of the Hunter” (1955) is one He wanted to "restore the power of silent films to talkies. the single-minded murderer, but is as unyielding as her faith. coiling down those basement stairs: "Chillll . And he hated the script, but Laughton made significant rewrites to the script, and his was the version used for shooting, even though he insisted that Agee be credited as the only writer. . In his 1989 film Do the Right Thing, Spike Lee created the character Radio Raheem who wears brass knuckles saying "love" and "hate" on each hand and gives a speech that is almost verbatim to Powell's. "Bob Mitchum is so very sleepily self-confident with the women that when he slopes into clinches you expect him to snore in their faces." Bibliography. Both remained their own men to the very end. Laughton took this commercial failure of his first film personally, and never attempted to make another film. . Powell sets off on a psychological-turned-physical hunt to discover the children’s secret. If they take him at his word, they will surely die. "[22] Laughton liked Mitchum for the role partly due to his sexual persona, but Grubb was concerned about the character of the preacher being considered sexual. [24] Robert Mitchum was eager for the part of the preacher. Agee died in the back of a taxicab, dismayingly young, of a heart attack in the year of NIGHT OF THE HUNTER’s release. [69] It began as a cult film, with a small group of fans, and regularly played at museums and in revival houses. And his reportage, like the iconoclastic Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, speaks the truth so uncompromisingly you feel like you’re looking at a naked soul. children, whom Laughton could not stand. His fiction, like A Death in the Family, hits the palate like mountain water, clear and stinging and sweet. The . New York: Limelight Editions, 2002. does this familiarity give "The Night of the Hunter” the recognition it Powell’s romanticism is a blasphemous one, overloaded with eros and starved of love. "[72], The Night of the Hunter was rated No. The Night of the Hunter. [77], The Night of the Hunter was released on DVD by MGM Home Entertainment in 2000. at 518-442-5620 or online at https://www.albany.edu/writers-inst. . of nightmares, in which no matter how fast one runs, the slow step of the nightmare. Rachel Cooper [54][45], The film's editor, Robert Golden, has said that after he screened the complete film to one of the United Artists studio executives for the first time, the executive told Golden, "It's too arty. [39] Mitchum's performance in the film has been described as Brechtian acting, which Laughton had extensive experience with. old lady (Lillian Gish), who would seem to be helpless to defend them against [29] Jane Darwell and Louise Fazenda also were considered. John breaks down as he witnesses the arrest of Powell as a parallel to his father's arrest, beating the doll against the handcuffed Powell as the money spills out. bottom of the river, her hair drifting with the seaweed. But the town Willa Harper is dead, seen in an incredible shot at the wheel of a car at the [10] Laughton contacted Grubb, and the two of them instantly got along very well. In THE NIGHT OF THE HUNTER, Mitchum plays "‘Preacher’ Harry Powell" a charismatic pretender who seduces and murders in order to get at a fortune stashed by a convict named Harper. Peter Graves . Despite [61] However, one of the film's ads won an award for being in the top 50 best ads of 1954 from the American Institute of Graphic Arts. But Laughton showed here that he had an original eye, and a taste for material that Ben Harper. . [44][45] The studio however, tried to convince them to shoot on color film instead because they thought it would sell more tickets. The Night of the Hunter La noche del cazador 1955, USA Introducción Durante los títulos de crédito escuchamos la siguiente canción: “Sueña, pe-queño, sueña / sueña, mi pequeño, sueña. [47] Cortez also brought back the Iris shot in one scene, as an homage to silent films. When they arrive, they find that Birdie has drunk himself into a stupor after discovering Willa's corpse, fearing that the town would blame him for her death. Following Harper's execution, the released Powell makes his way to Harper's hometown where he charms the townsfolk while wooing Harper's widow Willa, who has been working for Walter Spoon and his wife Icey. are fleeing down the dream-river in a small boat, while the Preacher follows Mitchum persona in the Preacher. [27] In her 1989 memoir, Winters described this as "probably the most thoughtful and reserved performance I ever gave". Robert by great directors, but Laughton directed only this one film, which was a . These included the shorts and feature films she made with pioneer D.W. Griffith. "[16], The budget of the film was a little under $600,000,[17] of which about $75,000 was for the rights to adapt the novel. presiding over events like an avenging elderly angel. Robert Mitchum has always been a raffish outsider. . [citation needed] Besides, he wanted to create the film's unique look on Hollywood sound stages and found what he was looking for at Pathé, Republic Studios, and the Rowland V. Lee ranch in the San Fernando Valley. "[31], Principal photography of The Night of the Hunter began on August 15 and ended on October 7, 1954, a total of 36 days of shooting. [68], At the time of its release, The Night of the Hunter received mixed reviews, but over the years it has come to be regarded as a classic. [32][33] Laughton kept the editor and musical composer on set during filming, which was very uncommon at the time. to sign on to half-baked projects, he made a group of films that led David [38] Shelley Winters told Laughton she had this image of Willa as being "a fly fascinated by a spider, and she very willingly walks into this web". Harry Powell Many “great movies” are For the evolution of the melodrama, after the threatened, frightened children flee home, angles off into that allegorical contrast of the forces of Evil and Good.
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