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(1955, directed by Charles Laughton)
- inducted 2014 –
“It's difficult to think of another director who only directed one film having as much influence on cinema as Charles
Laughton, but then again Laughton always was a singular figure. The Night of the Hunter, his one and only effort behind
the camera, went on to inspire generations of filmmakers, most notably David Lynch, Martin Scorsese, the Coens, and Spike
Lee (who went so far as to quote at length from it in Do The Right Thing). Laughton himself took inspiration from
German Expressionism, one of the earliest and most lasting influences on cinema, with its angular distortion and chiaroscuro
shadows.
“Unlike standard film noir, which mostly restricted its borrowing from Expressionism to a utilitarian use of
shadow, Laughton and co-screenwriter James Agee (who, to put it mildly, knew a thing or two about movies) mined German cinema
of the 20s deeper, incorporating into the very heart of The Night of the Hunter that sense of the fairy tale that pervaded
the films of Lang, Murnau, Pabst et al. The Night of the Hunter, in contrast to the noirs that used German visual
style to tell crime stories, tells a crime story in the form of an Expressionist fable.
“At the center of it all is Robert Mitchum, in the finest work of a brilliant career as the fable's monster, a giant,
superficially charming murderer of women who believes he does so in the name of God. In this sense, he could be a projection
of the American id. The film's two child protagonists, whom Mitchum pursues for their knowledge of the whereabouts of a missing
bank-robbery stash, flee and are taken in by a kind old woman (a marvelous Lilian Gish, who by her very presence connects
the film to the beginning of the medium), who protects them against the beast. As written, the film could be a fairly standard
noir story with the slightly novel twist of starring two children, but as filmed (with the help of the great cinematographer
Stanley Cortez) Laughton's fulsome embrace of Expressionism highlights the effectiveness of the symbolic and unreal at creating
emotional impact.
“It's not a subtle film, but Charles Laughton was not a subtle man. The Night of the Hunter has taken on classic
status despite doing poor business on initial release for being an intelligently, artfully executed variation on a story as
old as time, and that is going nowhere: escaping the monster. Despite the fact that they do, the title of the movie itself
is an ironic indicator of one of life's hardest truths: we are always on the monster's home turf, and escape is thus that
much harder.” ~ Danny Bowes
Principal cast: Robert Mitchum, Shelley Winters, Lillian Gish, James Gleason, Evelyn Varden, Peter Graves,
Don Beddoe, Billy Chapin, Sally Jane Bruce, Gloria Castilo
Screenplay by James Agee, Charles Laughton (uncredited)
Based on the novel by Davis Grubb
Produced by Paul Gregory
Director of photography: Stanley Cortez
Production design by Hilyard M. Brown (art direction), Al Spencer (set decoration)
Film editing by Robert Golden
Original music by Walter Schumann
Makeup by Don Cash
Hair stylist: Kay Shea
Sound by Stanford Houghton
Special photographic effects by Louis DeWitt, Jack Rabin
Children directed by Robert Mitchum (uncredited)
USA
Duration: 93 minutes
Languages: English
Filmed in black and white
Sound mix: Mono (Western Electric Recording)
Aspect ratio: 1.66:1
Produced by Paul Gregory Productions
Released in USA by United Artists
Premiered in Des Moines, IA on 26 July 1955
Awards and honors:
- National Film Registry selection, 1992
- Selected as one of Roger Ebert’s “Great Movies,” 24 November 2006
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