The great horror films of the 1930s all had this Gothic art feel, as if the people who built the creepy castles that Dracula and Dr. Frankenstein lived in had a hand in making these movies. By 1955, this was largely missing, until The Night of the Hunter hit theaters. The film, which is the only one the great actor Charles Laughton ever directed, is among the creepiest movies of the decade. It remains so partly because of Robert Mitchum's chilling performance, but also thanks to the Gothic texture of the sets. Laughton brought D.W. Griffith to 1950s cinema in a way few could have expected.
The Night of the Hunter is based on Davis Grubbs' novel and was adapted by James Agee (The African Queen). It is set in Depression-era West Virginia, just after Ben Harper is sentenced to hang for a robbery. Harper hid the money, but only told his young son, John (Billy Chaplin) where that money is and Preacher Harry Powell (Mitchum) wants it. So, Powell, who is an escaped serial killer, tries to get Harper to tell him where the money is. Harper hints that his children might now, so Powell marries Harper's naïve wife, Willa (Shelley Winters) to gain the trust of the children.
The trouble with this plan is that John sees right through Powell. He is the only one who can tell that the kind preacher personality Powell is putting on for the townspeople is just a fraud. Now, John is left as the only one who can protect his younger sister Pearl (Sally Jane Bruce) from Powell.
When I revisited The Night of the Hunter this week, it was astonishing just how quickly the film moves within its short 93 minutes and yet Laughton gets so much out of this material. This is a horror film with religious overtones, told through a child's eye, yet the subjects are shockingly adult. The children's mother is sexually repressed and their step-father is a brutal serial killer. Pearl and John have to grow up over the course of this film so quickly, that Laughton almost gets us to forget they are children. (The only other director to achieve anything like what Laughton did is Rene Clement, who directed children in his own horrific fairy tale, Forbidden Games).
If there is one sequence that defines The Night of the Hunter as a masterpiece it is the epic chase sequence an hour into the film. John and Pearl, now without a mother and with Powell on their trail, are left by themselves to navigate down a river. In one chilling scene, while sleeping at a barn, we hear Powell singing. “Doesn't that man ever sleep?” asks John. The answer, of course, is no and the two have to keep moving. They wind up at the home of Mrs. Cooper, played by Lillian Gish (of course, Laughton pays tribute to Griffith in more than style), the only person in the entire film that really understands them. She's just as religious as Powell, but has chosen a different path, caring for young runaways as their mother. Mrs. Cooper is their savior, a caring figure they never had.
That chase sequences embodies the Gothic feel of the film, highlighted by Stanley Cortez's stark, black and white cinematography. Cortez had a unique eye and shot some of the best black & white movies in Hollywood during the 1940s (Orson Welles' The Magnificent Amersons among them). This made him a perfect collaborator for Laughton, helping him make the film look like it was made by German Expressionists or in the 1920s.
Yet, what really makes me go back to The Night of the Hunter repeatedly is Mitchum's incendiary performance. Mitchum was a tough guy in noirs like Out of the Past and a rugged soldier in Story of G.I. Joe (his only Oscar-nominated performance), but his downright evil roles in Hunter and Cape Fear are his best. In Hunter, Mitchum finds the role of his career. He never dominated the screen like he does during Powell and Willa's wedding night or look as pathetic when the children escape his grasp. This is acting people.
On Home Video: The Criterion Collection released The Night of the Hunter in 2010, using a restoration completed by UCLA Film & Television Archive and MGM. This is seriously a film to watch in the darkest conditions possible. It is a stacked edition, a true 'film school in a box,' complete with a 158-minute feature called Charles Laughton directs 'The Night of the Hunter.' That is literally what it is – a collection of incredible footage from the set, showing how great Laughton was at directing actors and how he shaped Mitchum's performance.
The Night of the Hunter is the perfect horror film. There's no disfigured monsters, there's no blood and there's no silly plot twist. It caters to our child-like fears of people we cannot trust and what it feels like to have no one believe you. This is a horror fairy tale and a true, singular masterpiece of the medium.
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