A father of two robs a bank during the Great Depression. Just before the cops can nab him at his house, the dad (played by Peter Graves) hides a wad of money and tells his kids, John and Pearl, to never reveal its location.
However, while in jail, he meets a man named Harry Powell (Robert Mitchum). When Powell, who calls himself Preacher, gets wind of the missing money, he becomes obsessed with relieving John, Pearl, and their beautiful mother (Shelley Winters) of the $10,000 in loot.
To achieve this end, Powell carries a switchblade which he calls a "sword" and has conversations with the Lord about smiting widows in Holy Battle.
Night of the Hunter (1955), directed by one of film's greatest actors, Charles Laughton, is a gem of a picture concerning sex, money, religion, and murder all in one.
As Harry Powell, Robert Mitchum is perfectly cast. When asked what religion he claims to preach, Powell growls, "The religion the Almighty and me worked out betwixt us!"
It's the movie where Mitchum sports tattoos on his knuckles proclaiming LOVE and HATE. An "inwardly ravening wolf," Powell's not just out for money, he's legitimately nuts at all times. He hates women, and reminds God during their one-sided chats how God hates "perfume-smellin' things," too.
Another character spends a deal of time talking to God and she's played by Lillian Gish, one of film's first stars, famous among other things for her role in D.W. Griffith's Way Down East (1920).
The attractive widow of the bank robber, excellently played by Shelley Winters, bends God's ear in her own way, praying for "cleanliness" in the eyes of a supposed preacher who's killed around a dozen widows.
Many of the shots that are intended to be outdoors clearly aren't. For whatever reason--probably greater filmmaking control--several scenes require indoor studio setup prevalent in cinema. Doesn't help the general look to suddenly see fake river. But there it is.
As a film about repression released in particularly repressive times, it (or rather Laughton) gets away with a lot. The matronly Mrs. Spoon waxes philosophic at a church picnic on the subject of women wanting sex and concludes that sort of fiddle-faddle is "just a pipedream" and maintains that in all those years with Mr. Spoon she just thinks about her canning.
Speaking of pipes, Mitchum liked smoking his. Got arrested for marijuana possession in 1948, and on the strength of that became extra-famous as Hollywood's sleepy-eyed, badass stoner. Less well-known: The screenplay for Thunder Road (1958), in which Mitchum starred, was based on a story he himself wrote about a Korean War vet's attempts to make moonshine.
Stanley Kubrick seems to have been inspired by the film. Comparisons between Jack Torrance and Harry Powell abound. Look for Mitchum also as a great bad guy chasing around Gregory Peck and family in the 1962 film Cape Fear.
THE NIGHT OF THE HUNTER
Starring Robert Mitchum,
Shelley Winters,
Lillian Gish,
James Gleason,
Evelyn Varden,
Billy Chapin,
Sally Jane Bruce,
Peter Graves
Directed by Charles Laughton
Written by James Agee
Based on the novel by Davis Grubb
Runtime 92 minutes
Stewart Kirby writes for
THE INDEPENDENT
and
TWO RIVERS TRIBUNE
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