“There’s too many of them. I can’t kill the world.” Robert Mitchum as Reverend Harry Powell.

Night of the Hunter The great actor Charles Laughton directed one movie, “Night of the Hunter,” in 1955 and never tried directing again, reportedly because of the poor reception it received. Today the movie is a cult classic. Many cult classics achieve that status by being particularly bad (“Plan 9 From Outer Space”) or by taking on a new life beyond its original intentions (“The Rocky Horror Picture Show”). “Night of the Hunter” is simply an artistic masterpiece. The movie certainly had its flaws, and it was definately misunderstood when it was first released. But oh what a movie! There are still shots and slow, dreamlike vignettes that resemble German Expressionism, the same influence you see in Tim Burton’s darker films. It’s a black and white film. A horror film, really. Especially for children. The basics: Robert Mitchum plays a devil, a psychopathic preacher named Harry Powell who can fool adults but not children. Lillian Gish plays an angel of mercy, taking in wayward children and setting them straight.

Mitchum sets a new standard for crazed film bad guys, using his tattooed knuckles to tell the story of HATE vs LOVE…

LOVE vs HATE

Would you like me to tell you the little story of right-hand/left-hand? The story of good and evil? H-A-T-E! It was with this left hand that old brother Cain struck the blow that laid his brother low. L-O-V-E! You see these fingers, dear hearts? These fingers has veins that run straight to the soul of man. The right hand, friends, the hand of love. Now watch, and I’ll show you the story of life. Those fingers, dear hearts, is always a-warring and a-tugging, one agin t’other. Now watch ‘em! Old brother left hand, left hand he’s a fighting, and it looks like love’s a goner. But wait a minute! Hot dog, love’s a winning! Yessirree! It’s love that’s won, and old left hand hate is down for the count!

The preacher marries a widow (Shelley Winters is always marvelous) to find out out where her executed husband hid his stolen money. He kills her as soon as he learns that her children have it. The sight of Winters’ corpse wrapped up in the seat of a submerged Model T, her hair flowing in the water as if blowing back on a Sunday drive, is horrific and beautiful at the same time.

Then Mitchum hunts the children. This part of the movie is the most surreal. It moves slowly, dreamlike, with high contrast lighting and beautiful mood music. The angles, lighting, scenes of nature and of architecture cannot exist in the real world. This is a nightmare, through which Mitchum calmly rides his horse and sings the same religious hymn relentlessly. The children run, they hide, they rest and then they run again.

Innocence and the Devil

Sacrificial Cathedral

Beautiful Corpse Bride

Surreal Chase

Gish harbors the children and fearlessly stands up to Mitchum, at one point driving him to howl chillingly like a wounded animal. This is one creepy movie.

I see the children as the main flaw in this film. They can’t act. I prefer to regard them as placeholders, surrogates for you and me and kids of all ages who would feel the movie’s impact most strongly if they put themselves in these kids’ shoes.

Six-Eye Jackson

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