Night of the Hunter 1955

Set in WHAT state? Excellent film. It's a shame it wasn't lauded at the time of its release. Wasn't it also the only film Laughton directed?

We did this movie exhaustively last year

They abide.

I absolutely adore this movie and will drop pretty anything to watch it. It’s weird, it’s extremely creepy, it’s surreal, and it has a beautiful and powerful shot of Lillian Gish towards the end of the movie. You will know it when you see it.

Ugh' I basically said the same thing three times. ^^^

Yes, it’s the only movie Laughton directed and it has such a theatrical energy to it - it’s clear it was directed by someone used to the proscenium. I think it has such a haunting beauty.

It’s a shame he never directed anything else. This movie is extraordinary. “It’s a hard world for little things.”

[quote] "Yes, it’s the only movie Laughton directed and it has such a theatrical energy to it - it’s clear it was directed by someone used to the proscenium. I think it has such a haunting beauty."

Apparently, it's been adapted as a musical (puke), R5. But I think it'd make a better opera or straight play (if that hasn't already been done).

There is a musical version that is brilliant. Written by our own Steven Coles.

[quote] "There is a musical version that is brilliant. Written by our own Steven Coles."

I admit, I haven't heard or seen any of it, R8. But I tired of the "let's turn anything and everything into a musical" trend a long time ago.

How can one make a song-and-dance musical about murderers and obsessives?

*

The film was way ahead of its time, and film critic and novelist James Agee wrote the screenplay. Laughton had such a unique style (reminiscent of Orson Welles' mix of German Expressionism and French Poetic Realism) that it's a shame he never directed another film again. It flopped, and critics ripped it to shreds at the time.

[quote] "How can one make a song-and-dance musical about murderers and obsessives?"

Precisely, R10. Which is why I believe opera would be the best way to adapt it musically. And now that I think about it..."The Night Of The Hunter" is just screaming for an operatic adaptation anyway.

" It's a hard world for little things." Superb movie,

The most overhyped, overpraised movie until “Once Upon a Time in America.”

Beautiful, weird film. And Robert Mitchum playing one of his 2 great movie villains.

The novel is good too. The author, a West Virginian named Davis Grubb, loosely based Harry Powell (the Mitchum character) on the serial killer Harry Powers. Jayne Anne Phillips' 2009 novel "Quiet Dell" is also about the Powers murders.

Dorothy Loudon did the musical concept album. Poor Dottie, so many flops that she didn’t deserve.

R16 “Leaning…leaning…”

R19....No one did sexy evil like Mitchum. Even the way he's sitting on that trunk in the "Leaning" scene...damn. But really, everything out of that film is sublime.

Gish was PERFECT!

If I had a gazillion bucks, I would re-make this film. I would cast Mathew McConaughey as the reverend.

^ No remakes please, you can't top perfect.

That whistle was so sinister. It was a masterpiece. Robert Mitchum was such a trip. His Marijuana bust court picture is one of the funniest things I've seen.

I first saw this as a kid in the 70s when our local PBS showed it on a Saturday night. i have loved it ever since.

As a kid it was on TV regularly and I was terrified. The shot of Mitchum's silhouette on horseback is still chilling. And Gish in the last scene tears me apart.

R15 likes listing movies' names to prove.... something.

Well, it does prove something about R15, certainly.

I also vividly remember Shelly Winters' corpse underwater.

Poor Shelley ended up in the water a lot!

I remember the story about Gish being suggested to Laughton and he not thinking it a very good idea as she seemed very small, weak and bird-like. The person who suggested her told Laughton to watch her old silent films, particularly the scene with her floating on the ice floes (which, she did in the middle of winter on an actual river near a waterfall. ) Laughton was convinced and cast her. The rest is history.

[quote](which, she did in the middle of winter on an actual river near a waterfall.)

That was an incredibly close call, r29. Imagine an actress doing that today.

It's gotta be Max Cady, r16. The poster who said that Mitchum excelled at playing sexy evil nailed it. I also think he fisted that poor girl he picked up at the bar.

Great movie

“Children are man at his strongest: They abide. The wind blows and the rains are cold. Yet they abide—they abide and they endure.”

My cousin and I ahd sleepovers on Saturday nights at my favorite aunt's house and we'd watch this and it scared the shit out of me. "chilllldrennnn..."

The cinematographer, Stanley Cortez, was nominated for an Oscar for Orson Welles' "The Magnificent Ambersons." His work in "The Night of the Hunter" is just as imaginative and memorable.

"What could've gotten into that girl?"

"Satan!"

ADORE this movie.

[quote] The cinematographer, Stanley Cortez....is just as imaginative and memorable.

The screen has great areas of inky blackness. And other big areas of glowing whiteness that I feel I need to wear sunglasses.

The photographer seemed to want to eliminate all the 20% gray tones, and the 40% gray and the 70%.

It's too self-consciously abstract to be credible..

Laughton was an interesting performer but he was no cinema auteur.

We need to investigate this pushy, good-looking heterosexual who made the big decision to allow neurotic homosexual Laughton direct this cheap, arty movie.

Laughton wanted to play the preacher role himself.

Handsome Paul pushed Laughton on stage as well.

"Speak, or I'll cut your throat and leave you to drip like a hog in butchering time." Where the HELL was my mother when I was watching this evil shit?

You say Mitchum was sexy.

But I say he was ugly with a bad attitude and lazy eyelids.

R16, R31 He's fine playing those two villains but he was deadly in Stanley Donen's failure.

Mitchum made evil sexy.

if this is ever remade, I would cast Matthew McConaughey in the minister role.

He might pull it off, but this film should never be remade.

When we were little my cousin and I used to spend the night at my godmother's house on t he weekends in the summer. It was our "Staycation." There was always a scary movie on at 11:30 on a Saturday night. So we watched this and it scared the crap out of me. "Chillldren! " to this day it makes the hair on my neck stand on end. It was a weird gorgeously shot movie. And once again, Shelley Winters drowned. LOL!

Pointing out the obvious, that scene of Shelley in the car at the bottom of the river is ICONIC and I defy anyone to accuse me of abusing that term. It fascinated me as a child, especially when I was promptly sent to bed. Couldn't wait to see the whole movie and it did not disappoint when I finally did.

The image that haunted me as a child was the silhouette of the preacher on horseback slowly crossing on the horizon.

Seen a few of those knuckle tats in real life

The weird evil level of camp was pretty scary

And Lillian Gish shatters my heart every time.

This was the role made for Agnes Moorehead.

The final casting was great because it was so against Ms. Gishs' very carefully crafted image.

And Robert Mitchum is sex on a stick. No question.

"Leaning, leaning, leaning on the everlasting Lord, Leaning, leaning, Leaning on the everlasting Lord."

[quote] I first saw this as a kid in the 70s when our local PBS showed it on a Saturday night. i have loved it ever since.

Me, too.

the MUSICAL

When my mom and dad were courting she used to tell him he looked like Robert Mitchum. Unfortunately he also drank like Mitchum.

It was remade in 1991 as a TV movie, Richard Chamberlain as the preacher, Diana Scarwid as Willa, and Mary Nell Santacroce (Dana Ivey’s mother and superb in John Houston’s film of Wise Blood) as the widow. I haven’t seen it, but I have a difficult imaging Chamberlain coming close to Mitchum’s shadowy charisma. I mainly know Scarwid from Mommie Dearest, which featured overheated and strange performances, so don’t have an opinion. I imagine Santacroce was excellent (Huston admired her—she mainly did stage work and taught), but there is something so archetypal about Gish that comparisons are odious.

This feels almost too personal to share, but what the hell. I saw this as a child and it actually foretold events that would happen in my life, and issues and dilemmas and repeating themes I would wrestle with. Encounters with truly evil people, religious hypocrisy, sexual shaming, childhood trauma. I'm an older gentleman man now. They do indeed "endure and abide".

Mitchum proposed to his wife with words, “Stick with me, kid, and you’ll be farting through silk.”