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In film, much like any art form, one of the most persistent debates in its history is quantity vs. quality, or whether the scarcity of an artist’s work gives it more relevancy and artistic merit than that which is more prevalent. For example, Roger Corman is the most prolific director of all time, having directed 50 feature films and produced over 400 others as well as mentoring future talents like Jack Nicholson and Martin Scorsese, yet many of those films would probably be considered bargain bin B-movies at best. John Milius, on the other hand, only directed around 8 films (though he wrote several more) in his career, and yet many of those films garnered enormous critical and commercial acclaim at the time. Does the fact that Milius made less yet more well-known films make those works more ‘artistic’ than others? Does the fact that Corman approaches filmmaking from a business standpoint, and Hollywood is indeed a business, mean his movies lack merit. These are the questions that film scholars concern themselves with, instead of making or watching movies.
Falling on the side of the ‘quality’ argument is Charles Laughton. A star of stage & screen whose career stretched back all the way to 1928, Laughton is probably most well known for his roles as Dr. Moreau in Island of Lost Souls, Quasimodo in The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and Captain William Bligh in Mutiny on the Bounty. In 1955 however, Laughton stepped behind the camera to bring us The Night of the Hunter, starring Robert Mitchum (Cape Fear, Out of the Past) and Shelley Winters (A Place in the Sun, Lolita). Although it was to be his only directorial role, and one of the last films he’d ever work on until his death in 1962, it has since gone down as one of the greatest films of all time, even holding a spot on a list of Top 100 American Films as compiled by the BBC. Which means that there is a lot of hype going in, and that it probably shouldn’t be haphazardly reviewed for a Halloween Movie list, but I say screw it! We’re doing it live, ladies and gents.
A long, long time ago, in those lean Depression-era years of the Ohio River Valley, Ben Harper, desperate not to see his kids grow up in the crippling poverty that he sees befall other children, murders two men in cold blood and steals a large stash of money. Before the police come to take him away, Ben hides the money somewhere near his house, and makes his son John and daughter Pearl swear never to reveal its location. The police then arrive and arrest Ben, sending him to Moundsville Penitentiary, where he is eventually executed by hanging. Despite his young age, John never reveals the location of the money, and with no other clues it eventually passes into the realm of urban legend.
Some time later, the sleepy little Ohio Valley town is visited by a traveling preacher, known as Harry Powers, a strikingly compelling man with the words LOVE and HATE tattooed on his fingers. Powers claims to have been friends with Ben in Moundsville, and manages to charm the entire town with his holy speeches and magnetic personality, even marrying the widow Harper within the week of his visiting (marriage didn’t require a lot of thought in those days, apparently). John is the only person in town who isn’t take in by Mr. Powers, and for good reason: The marriage, the friendship with Ben, it was all a fabrication, a series of lies that Powers told in order to find the stolen money. Harry Powers isn’t even a preacher at all in fact, but is instead a con man, a violently misogynistic lunatic with a history of murdering widows and robbing them of their possessions. With the whole town against him and Powers getting more and more impatient (as well as dangerous) by the day, John and Pearl must make a desperate escape and hopefully find someone, anyone, who can help them. Like a little Stand By Me with your Shining? Try The Night of the Hunter on for size.
Although Night of the Hunter is listed as thriller, and I’d say the first half of the film certainly feels like one, by the second half I’d almost say it turns into a fairy tale. You have the child protagonist, the evil step parent, the child going on a journey and facing hardships, which eventually leads to a happy ending (because there’s not a movie made in America that will allow a child being stabbed to death). There’s never that feeling of whimsicality that comes from fairy tales here however; though the road John and Pearl travel is extraordinary it’s still tinged with the harsh realities of the time, the poverty, violence and ignorance of Depression. Perhaps that is what marks it as part of the folklore of America though. I mean, what else is Little Orphan Annie but a fairy tale?
I will say though, that even if Hunter is a more realistic fairy tale, there are several scenes that are strikingly picturesque, and some which seem years before their time. The scene with Powers and the widow Harper, with the way the shadows cut through the room and obscures Robert Mitchum’s face, seems more like something from a German Expressionist film than the Golden Age of Hollywood. The scene of John and Pearl’s first setting out on the Ohio River by night also feels unlike anything I’ve before in films of that era, with the night sky literally looking like how one might represent it in a picture book (or a play, which makes sense given Laughton’s background in theater). I’m reminded of both Fritz Lang’s Metropolis and Coppola’s Apocalypse Now!, but not for anything specific.
I’ve also got to give props for the acting, which was top notch. Robert Mitchum is to Harry Powers as Mads Mikkelsen is to Hannibal Lector: Supremely calm, genial, even likable to a degree, and then a switch is flipped and you see him for the monster that he really is. Shelley Winters is great, a bit simple, but then if she’s a fairy tale parent you kind of expect it. Lillian Gish as Rachel Cooper the kindly is great. Hell, even Billy Chapin as John Harper is great, which is a nice surprise. It was a huge gamble really, because like The Goonies or Stand By Me or Monster Squad this is a movie that relies heavily on the child actors to make it work, and a whole hell of a lot of time it doesn’t at all.
The only nit I’d have to pick with this one is that the ending is not quite the explosive finish that I was hoping for, but then that might just be my modern sensibilities triggering unfair expectations. Otherwise I’d say this was a very good film, very deserving of the praise it has earned over the years, and I’m making a recommendation to watch it. It may be a little tame compared to your typical Halloween fare, but as you might have noticed from my previous entries, I don’t necessarily think you need to watch a dude getting his arms ripped off by some hideous monster to have a good time. If I want gratuitous violence and apathetic, toxic personalities, I’ll just watch the news.
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