Jump to content

The Night of the Hunter (film): Difference between revisions

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Browse history interactively
← Previous editNext edit →
Content deleted Content added
VisualWikitext
m Undid revision 457062680 by 174.114.27.122 (talk)---Stop changing that.
No edit summary
Line 30: Line 30:
Convinced that Harper told his children the secret, Powell woos and marries Harper's widow, Willa ([[Shelley Winters]]). Willa does not know her new husband's motive and believes her marriage will lead to her salvation. Powell asks the children about the money when they are alone, but they reveal nothing. John is suspicious of Powell and protective of his sister. One night Willa overhears her husband questioning the children and she realizes the truth. As she lies in bed that night in their attic bedroom, Powell leans over her and slits her throat.
Convinced that Harper told his children the secret, Powell woos and marries Harper's widow, Willa ([[Shelley Winters]]). Willa does not know her new husband's motive and believes her marriage will lead to her salvation. Powell asks the children about the money when they are alone, but they reveal nothing. John is suspicious of Powell and protective of his sister. One night Willa overhears her husband questioning the children and she realizes the truth. As she lies in bed that night in their attic bedroom, Powell leans over her and slits her throat.


Powell dumps her body in the river. He finally learns the money's location from Pearl by threatening John, but the children flee with the money down the river. They eventually find sanctuary with Rachel Cooper ([[Lillian Gish]]), a tough old woman who looks after stray children. Powell eventually tracks them down, but Rachel sees through his false virtue. After a climactic standoff, in which Rachel protects the children with a shotgun but sings hymns through the night with Powell, he is arrested by the police and put on trial for the murder of Willa. Towards the end of the film, Rachel declares that "children are man at his strongest. They abide." The film ends with her speaking directly to camera: "They abide and they endure."
Powell dumps her body in the river. He finally learns the money's location from Pearl by threatening John, but the children flee with the money down the river. They eventually find sanctuary with Rachel Cooper ([[Lillian Gish]]), a tough old woman who looks after stray children. Powell eventually tracks them down, but Rachel sees through his false virtue. After a climactic standoff, in which Rachel protects the children with a shotgun but sings hymns through the night with Powell, he is arrested by the police and put to death for the murder of Willa and for the crimes against the children. Towards the end of the film, Rachel declares that "children are man at his strongest. They abide." The film ends with her speaking directly to camera: "They abide and they endure."


==Cast==
==Cast==

Revision as of 18:38, 2 November 2011

The Night of the Hunter
File:Nightofthehunterposter.jpg
Theatrical release poster
Directed byCharles Laughton
Screenplay byJames Agee
Charles Laughton
Produced byPaul Gregory
StarringRobert Mitchum
Shelley Winters
Lillian Gish
CinematographyStanley Cortez
Edited byRobert Golden
Music byWalter Schumann
Production
company
Distributed byUnited Artists
Release date
  • September 29, 1955 (1955-09-29)
Running time
93 minutes
CountryTemplate:Film US
LanguageEnglish

The Night of the Hunter is a 1955 American thriller film directed by Charles Laughton and starring Robert Mitchum and Shelley Winters.[1] The film is based on the 1953 novel of the same name by Davis Grubb, adapted for the screen by James Agee and Laughton. The novel and film draw on the true story of Harry Powers, hanged in 1932 for the murders of two widows and three children in Clarksburg, West Virginia. The film's lyric and expressionistic style sets it apart from other Hollywood films of the 1940s and 50s, and it has influenced later directors such as David Lynch, Martin Scorsese, Terrence Malick, Jim Jarmusch, the Coen brothers, and Spike Lee.

In 1992, The Night of the Hunter was deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the United States Library of Congress and was selected for preservation in its National Film Registry.

Plot

The film is set in 1930s West Virginia, along the Ohio River. Ben Harper (Peter Graves) is sentenced to hang for his part in a robbery in which two men were killed. Before he is caught he hides the stolen money, trusting only his son John (Billy Chapin), the main character of the story, with the money's location. John has a much younger sister, Pearl (Sally Jane Bruce). Reverend Harry Powell (Robert Mitchum), a serial killer and self-appointed preacher with the two words "LOVE" and "HATE" tattooed across the fingers/knuckles of his right and left hands, shares a prison cell with Harper. He tries to get Harper to tell him the hiding place before his execution, but the only clue he gets is a Bible verse Harper mutters in his sleep: "And a little child shall lead them."

Convinced that Harper told his children the secret, Powell woos and marries Harper's widow, Willa (Shelley Winters). Willa does not know her new husband's motive and believes her marriage will lead to her salvation. Powell asks the children about the money when they are alone, but they reveal nothing. John is suspicious of Powell and protective of his sister. One night Willa overhears her husband questioning the children and she realizes the truth. As she lies in bed that night in their attic bedroom, Powell leans over her and slits her throat.

Powell dumps her body in the river. He finally learns the money's location from Pearl by threatening John, but the children flee with the money down the river. They eventually find sanctuary with Rachel Cooper (Lillian Gish), a tough old woman who looks after stray children. Powell eventually tracks them down, but Rachel sees through his false virtue. After a climactic standoff, in which Rachel protects the children with a shotgun but sings hymns through the night with Powell, he is arrested by the police and put to death for the murder of Willa and for the crimes against the children. Towards the end of the film, Rachel declares that "children are man at his strongest. They abide." The film ends with her speaking directly to camera: "They abide and they endure."

Cast

Production

The film was a collaboration of Charles Laughton and screenwriter James Agee. Laughton drew on the harsh, angular look of German expressionist films of the 1920s.[2]

The film's score, composed and arranged by Walter Schumann in close association with Laughton, features a combination of nostalgic and expressionistic orchestral passages. The film has two original songs by Schumann, "Lullaby" (sung by Kitty White, whom Schumann discovered in a nightclub) and "Pretty Fly" (originally sung by Sally Jane Bruce as Pearl, but later dubbed by an actress named Betty Benson). A recurring musical device involves the preacher making his presence known by singing the traditional hymn "Leaning on the Everlasting Arms." Mitchum also recorded the soundtrack version of the hymn.[3]

In 1974, film archivists Robert Gitt and Anthony Slide retrieved several boxes of photographs, sketches, memos, and letters relating to the film from Laughton's widow Elsa Lanchester for the American Film Institute. Lanchester also gave the Institute over 80,000 feet of rushes and outtakes from the filming.[4] In 1981, this material was sent to the UCLA Film and Television Archive where, for the next 20 years, they were edited into a two-and-half hour documentary that premiered in 2002, at UCLA's Festival of Preservation.[5]

Response

The Night of the Hunter was not a success with either audiences or critics at its initial release, and Laughton never directed another film.[1] Nevertheless, the film has found a wider audience over the years, and Mitchum's performance, in particular, has been praised.

The film was shot in black and white in the styles and motifs of German Expressionism (bizarre shadows, stylized dialogue, distorted perspectives, surreal sets, odd camera angles) to create a simplified and disturbing mood that reflects the sinister character of Powell, the nightmarish fears of the children, and the sweetness of their savior Rachel.

Roger Ebert wrote, "It is one of the most frightening of movies, with one of the most unforgettable of villains, and on both of those scores it holds up ... well after four decades."[6]

The Night of the Hunter was rated #34 on AFI's 100 Years... 100 Thrills ranking, and #90 on Bravo's 100 Scariest Movie Moments. In a 2007 listing of the 100 Most Beautiful Films, Cahiers du cinéma ranked The Night of the Hunter No. 2.[7] It is among the top ten in the BFI list of the 50 films you should see by the age of 14. Powell was ranked No. 29 in the villains column in AFI's 100 Years...100 Heroes and Villains.

It ranked as the 71st greatest movie of all time on Empire Magazine's 500 greatest films list.[8]

In 1992, the United States Library of Congress deemed The Night of the Hunter to be "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" and selected the film for preservation in its National Film Registry.

See also

References

  1. ^ a b Burgess Meredith is credited as director of the film The Man on the Eiffel Tower[1]. Laughton and Irving Allen also directed but are not credited.
  2. ^ The Night of the Hunter: Not Noir http://www.filmsnoir.net.
  3. ^ http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000053/
  4. ^ Satola, Mark. Preview: A Rare Look Behind The Scenes Of The Night Of The Hunter
  5. ^ "Treasures from the UCLA Film and Television Archive"
  6. ^ Roger Ebert (November 24, 1996). "The Night of the Hunter (1955)". rogerebert.suntimes.com.
  7. ^ "Cahiers du cinema: 100 most beautiful films in the world". 2008-11-04.
  8. ^ The 500 Greatest Films Of All Time - The Night of the Hunter Empire.

Bibliography

  • Callow, Simon: The Night of the Hunter, BFI Film Classics, BFI (British Film Institute) Publishing, 2000. 96 pages.
  • Couchman, Jeffrey: The Night of the Hunter: A Biography of a Film, Northwestern University Press, 2009. 264 pages.
  • Jones, Preston Neal: Heaven and Hell to Play With: The Filming of The Night of the Hunter, Limelight Editions, 2004. 400 pages.
  • Ziegler, Damien: La Nuit du chasseur, une esthétique cinématographique, Bazaar and co, 2008. 160 pages.
Wikiquote has quotations related to The Night of the Hunter (film).
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Night_of_the_Hunter_(film)&oldid=458677584"