Monday, January 30, 2017
030 - Sweet Smell of Success, 1957, United States. Dir. Alexander Mackendrick.
Ah, the sweet smell of success.
Fecal. Squalid. Begrimed.
Those gangsters sure do know how to break people.
Not because you have crossed them. Not because you are competing with them.
But just because you, my sister, are dating someone I do not want you to date.
Or because you, my minion, were supposed to break up my sister's relationship and you did not do it.
How dare you.
I will now destroy you.
Wait.
What did you say?
Gangsters?
These are not gangsters. No, they are not gangsters. He is not a gangster.
He is a writer. A newspaper columnist.
A newspaper columnist?
A newspaper columnist.
The character of J. J. Hunsecker, played by Burt Lancaster, loves his sister, a little too much maybe. So he does not want her to be dating jazz musician Steve Dallas.
Sidney Falco is a press agent. He needs Hunsecker to print items that support Falco's clients and help their careers. So Hunsecker uses this need as leverage to maintain power over Falco.
He demands that Falco break up his sister Susan Hunsecker's relationship to Dallas.
But so far Falco has been unable to do it. In fact, Dallas has now proposed to Susan, and they intend to inform J. J. tomorrow morning at breakfast.
So tonight Falco will run around New York City, from club to club, trying to work things out to save his career.
And he will go without an overcoat to keep from having to tip coat-check girls.
My how times have changed.
He will insinuate himself upon Hunsecker to try to get him to understand Falco's situation.
He will go to another newspaper columnist and try to bribe him with his wife to try to get him to print the items that Hunsecker will not print. That man will call his bluff and tell his own wife the dirt in order to remove the leverage.
He will go to yet a third newspaper columnist to see what that will do.
Falco is desperate.
As the evening progresses, Falco will play everyone to set Dallas up in front of Hunsecker so that Susan herself will leave him. He does a great job of it.
But then Susan will set Falco up so that Hunsecker will think ill of him and crush him.
Everyone depends on each other. Everyone is trying to destroy one another.
The stakes seem so low to us--who is dating whom--but to them the stakes are life and death. It is the politics of high school gossip in the hands of New York social climbers--who aspire to be power brokers.
This is starting to sound like an F. Scott Fitzgerald short story about life in the Jazz Age.
But it is a Clifford Odets screenplay about life in the 1950s.
Some things just seem to come back around.
This film is shot by the great cinematographer James Wong Howe. The lights are light and the darks are dark, and the edges are as sharp as a paper cut.
Howe worked from the 1910s to the 1970s, beating out even Alfred Hitchcock for longevity. He was born in 1899 in Canton (Guangzhou), China, and he grew up in Pasco, Washington. At around 12 he bought a Kodak Brownie camera, and by the time he was 18 he was working for Cecil B. DeMille. He solved the problem of getting blue eyes to register on film, so he became the photographer that all blue-eyed stars would flock to. He would go on to shoot more than 130 movies and win two Oscars. He was the embodiment of the Great American Dream.
Meanwhile, the film was directed by Alexander Mackendrick, whom you know for practically nothing else, except perhaps for The Ladykillers and The Man in the White Suit. In all he directed maybe eight pictures. He is now considered a great director with a sure hand, but Sweet Smell of Success was such a financial disaster that his career faded and he moved into teaching.
What makes this picture sing is the acting and chemistry of Tony Curtis and Burt Lancaster. Tony plays the high-strung, fast-talking, nervous-energy, pretty boy for which we already know him, but Burt Lancaster plays against type, restraining all the virile strength of his large athletic body into a bespectacled, buttoned-up time-bomb, slowly ticking and destined to blow.
Odets has given them delicious lines to say, long lines filled with the wit and cunning of a top playwright, which they speak quickly and effortlessly as if seated at the Algonquin.
The film moves at a fast pace and is driven by the look of the city lights and the sound of a hot jazz score.
When you see the name Hunsecker, you may think of the Coen Brothers' 1994 comedy The Hudsucker Proxy. You can look up what influence this film may have had on their film.
This film was produced by Burt Lancaster with Harold Hecht (not Ben) and James Hill, with the unfortunate name Hecht-Hill-Lancaster Productions. The goal seems to have been to do for newspaper columnist Walter Winchell what Orson Welles did for newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst and others.
In an age without newspapers, it all now seems so historical to us.
My how times have changed.
Showing posts with label blog. Show all posts
Showing posts with label blog. Show all posts
Monday, January 30, 2017
Saturday, January 28, 2017
028 - Kiss Me Deadly, 1955, United States; Dir. Robert Aldrich.
Saturday, January 28, 2017
028 - Kiss Me Deadly, 1955, United States. Dir. Robert Aldrich.
A young woman walks down the middle of the highway in the middle of the night.
She is barefoot and wearing only a trenchcoat.
She appears to be in great distress.
A man speeds down the highway in his speedster in the middle of the night.
He is in a hurry and does not wish to be detained.
The woman stands in front of him.
He sees her in his headlights.
She will not budge.
At the last moment, he must swerve to avoid her.
He stops violently on the side of the road in the brush.
She approaches the car.
He is agitated. He does not wish to pick up a strange woman, even one naked under her trenchcoat. He wishes to be left alone.
But he lets her in. And they drive.
Down the long, dark, two-lane highway in the middle of the night.
The credits begin to scroll. From top to bottom. Reversed. Widening as they come down the screen.
Like white signs painted on the road. Growing larger as they approach.
This is film noir.
Dark. Violent. Hard-boiled. Hard-bitten. Cold.
In 1955 two French film critics (Raymond Borde and Etienne Chaumeton) wrote an essay entitled "Towards a Definition of Film Noir." It is one of the few pieces written about film noir, and calling it film noir, while film noir was still being made. Most commentary came afterwards, looking back. So having anything written about it contemporaneously is important.
In their essay they describe the impact of American films that came to France in the summer of 1946. During World War 2 France did not have access to American films, so when the war was over and they received them, it was like a revelation.
Before the war, they knew American films in the vein of William Wyler, John Ford, and Frank Capra. After the war, they saw "a strange and violent tone, tinged with a unique kind of eroticism." It was as if everything had changed overnight.
The critics list the following films that came to them in a 6-week period:
John Huston's The Maltese Falcon
Otto Preminger's Laura
Edward Dmytryk's Murder My Sweet
Billy Wilder's Double Indemnity
Fritz Lang's The Woman in the Window
A few months' later, the following films came to them:
Frank Tuttle's This Gun for Hire
Robert Siodmak's The Killer's
Robert Montgomery's The Lady in the Lake
Charles Vidor's Gilda
Howard Hawk's The Big Sleep
"A new 'series' had emerged in the history of film."
Notice that every film they list is by a different director. The films also represent all the studios.
This new phenomenon was so new, so sudden, and so wide-sweeping, that it caught the world by surprise.
And it is still being talked about.
The film noir period lasted for about twenty years, essentially during the 1940s and 1950s, and then it went away.
Every once in awhile someone will make one again, and it will be referred to as neo noir, but as a movement it is contained in this particular time in history. People are still trying to understand it. And people are still watching these movies.
The films in this canon are some of the most exciting, thrilling, tension-filled movies ever made. They deal with the dark side of human nature, but also with nobility, and they are visually, sometimes breathtakingly, beautiful to behold.
This film, Kiss Me Deadly, was directed by Robert Aldrich. Robert Aldrich is known for films such as The Big Knife (1955), Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962), Hush . . . Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1964), The Dirty Dozen (1967), The Longest Yard (1974), and The Frisco Kid (1979). In 1956, Aldrich was photographed on set holding a copy of a book in his hands entitled Panorama du Film Noir. That early. He was onto something.
The driver of our car is Mike Hammer, the hero of a series of books written by Mickey Spillane.
Spillane worked in a genre of novels we call hard-boiled detective fiction. Others include the characters Philip Marlowe by Raymond Chandler and Sam Spade by Dashiell Hammett,
These men were tough, no-nonsense, men of action. Women wanted them. Men wanted to be them.
They took the law into their own hands. They operated by their own code. Sometimes they were modern-day knights. Sometimes they were as lost as the criminals they were fighting.
As Mike Hammer drives our mysterious woman, played by a young Cloris Leachman, she tells him that they are after her. Who? They. And they are after something. What? Something. Later we will call it the Whatsit.
She tells him, "If I happen to make it alive, forget me. But if I don't make it, remember me."
What does that mean?
Maybe our poet Christina Roessetti can help us. Remember?
She does not make it.
Someone pulls out in front of them and causes them to crash.
He wakes up tied up somewhere and witnesses them torturing her.
He passes out again. They push the car over a cliff with the two of them in it.
He wakes up in the hospital room.
What happened?
Who are they?
What is the Whatsit?
He thinks it must be something big. He cannot leave it alone. He must get involved.
His police lieutenant friend takes away his detective license and his gun permit. He is not allowed to get involved.
Do you think that will stop him?
Mike sticks his nose where it does not belong.
And he gets into trouble.
And he goes throughout our city to do it.
Our city.
El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles del Río Porciúncula.
Los Angeles.
The home of hardboiled detective fiction. The home of crime dramas. The home of the movies. The home of film noir.
If you know the city, then you will have a feast watching this film. It is a practical tour of the town.
Malibu Canyon, Kaiser Hospital, Olive Street, Flower Street, 10401 Wilshire Boulevard, Rampart, Bunker Hill, Doheny, Cahuenga, Angel's Flight (operating!), Figueroa, the Hollywood Athletic Club, Sunset Blvd.
Yes, Sunset Blvd.
Some things just keep coming back.
Again.
And again.
How many girls will he kiss? How many girls will die? How many men will die? Will he himself die?
The plots in these films are often complicated. The characters are often complex. And there are often lots of characters.
They are puzzles to solve. Sometimes they end unsolved.
These are intelligent films for intelligent people. Disguised as B pictures. Cheap thrillers. Pulp fiction.
They tell the truth about the human condition.
Depravity. Evil. Original sin.
There is no one good. No, not one.
And in the end . . .
They entertain.
This one is explosive.
Keep away from the windows.
Someone might blow you a kiss.
028 - Kiss Me Deadly, 1955, United States. Dir. Robert Aldrich.
A young woman walks down the middle of the highway in the middle of the night.
She is barefoot and wearing only a trenchcoat.
She appears to be in great distress.
A man speeds down the highway in his speedster in the middle of the night.
He is in a hurry and does not wish to be detained.
The woman stands in front of him.
He sees her in his headlights.
She will not budge.
At the last moment, he must swerve to avoid her.
He stops violently on the side of the road in the brush.
She approaches the car.
He is agitated. He does not wish to pick up a strange woman, even one naked under her trenchcoat. He wishes to be left alone.
But he lets her in. And they drive.
Down the long, dark, two-lane highway in the middle of the night.
The credits begin to scroll. From top to bottom. Reversed. Widening as they come down the screen.
Like white signs painted on the road. Growing larger as they approach.
This is film noir.
Dark. Violent. Hard-boiled. Hard-bitten. Cold.
In 1955 two French film critics (Raymond Borde and Etienne Chaumeton) wrote an essay entitled "Towards a Definition of Film Noir." It is one of the few pieces written about film noir, and calling it film noir, while film noir was still being made. Most commentary came afterwards, looking back. So having anything written about it contemporaneously is important.
In their essay they describe the impact of American films that came to France in the summer of 1946. During World War 2 France did not have access to American films, so when the war was over and they received them, it was like a revelation.
Before the war, they knew American films in the vein of William Wyler, John Ford, and Frank Capra. After the war, they saw "a strange and violent tone, tinged with a unique kind of eroticism." It was as if everything had changed overnight.
The critics list the following films that came to them in a 6-week period:
John Huston's The Maltese Falcon
Otto Preminger's Laura
Edward Dmytryk's Murder My Sweet
Billy Wilder's Double Indemnity
Fritz Lang's The Woman in the Window
A few months' later, the following films came to them:
Frank Tuttle's This Gun for Hire
Robert Siodmak's The Killer's
Robert Montgomery's The Lady in the Lake
Charles Vidor's Gilda
Howard Hawk's The Big Sleep
"A new 'series' had emerged in the history of film."
Notice that every film they list is by a different director. The films also represent all the studios.
This new phenomenon was so new, so sudden, and so wide-sweeping, that it caught the world by surprise.
And it is still being talked about.
The film noir period lasted for about twenty years, essentially during the 1940s and 1950s, and then it went away.
Every once in awhile someone will make one again, and it will be referred to as neo noir, but as a movement it is contained in this particular time in history. People are still trying to understand it. And people are still watching these movies.
The films in this canon are some of the most exciting, thrilling, tension-filled movies ever made. They deal with the dark side of human nature, but also with nobility, and they are visually, sometimes breathtakingly, beautiful to behold.
This film, Kiss Me Deadly, was directed by Robert Aldrich. Robert Aldrich is known for films such as The Big Knife (1955), Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962), Hush . . . Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1964), The Dirty Dozen (1967), The Longest Yard (1974), and The Frisco Kid (1979). In 1956, Aldrich was photographed on set holding a copy of a book in his hands entitled Panorama du Film Noir. That early. He was onto something.
The driver of our car is Mike Hammer, the hero of a series of books written by Mickey Spillane.
Spillane worked in a genre of novels we call hard-boiled detective fiction. Others include the characters Philip Marlowe by Raymond Chandler and Sam Spade by Dashiell Hammett,
These men were tough, no-nonsense, men of action. Women wanted them. Men wanted to be them.
They took the law into their own hands. They operated by their own code. Sometimes they were modern-day knights. Sometimes they were as lost as the criminals they were fighting.
As Mike Hammer drives our mysterious woman, played by a young Cloris Leachman, she tells him that they are after her. Who? They. And they are after something. What? Something. Later we will call it the Whatsit.
She tells him, "If I happen to make it alive, forget me. But if I don't make it, remember me."
What does that mean?
Maybe our poet Christina Roessetti can help us. Remember?
She does not make it.
Someone pulls out in front of them and causes them to crash.
He wakes up tied up somewhere and witnesses them torturing her.
He passes out again. They push the car over a cliff with the two of them in it.
He wakes up in the hospital room.
What happened?
Who are they?
What is the Whatsit?
He thinks it must be something big. He cannot leave it alone. He must get involved.
His police lieutenant friend takes away his detective license and his gun permit. He is not allowed to get involved.
Do you think that will stop him?
Mike sticks his nose where it does not belong.
And he gets into trouble.
And he goes throughout our city to do it.
Our city.
El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles del Río Porciúncula.
Los Angeles.
The home of hardboiled detective fiction. The home of crime dramas. The home of the movies. The home of film noir.
If you know the city, then you will have a feast watching this film. It is a practical tour of the town.
Malibu Canyon, Kaiser Hospital, Olive Street, Flower Street, 10401 Wilshire Boulevard, Rampart, Bunker Hill, Doheny, Cahuenga, Angel's Flight (operating!), Figueroa, the Hollywood Athletic Club, Sunset Blvd.
Yes, Sunset Blvd.
Some things just keep coming back.
Again.
And again.
How many girls will he kiss? How many girls will die? How many men will die? Will he himself die?
The plots in these films are often complicated. The characters are often complex. And there are often lots of characters.
They are puzzles to solve. Sometimes they end unsolved.
These are intelligent films for intelligent people. Disguised as B pictures. Cheap thrillers. Pulp fiction.
They tell the truth about the human condition.
Depravity. Evil. Original sin.
There is no one good. No, not one.
And in the end . . .
They entertain.
This one is explosive.
Keep away from the windows.
Someone might blow you a kiss.
Friday, January 27, 2017
027 - The Night of the Hunter, 1955, United States; Dir. Charles Laughton.
Friday, January 27, 2017
027 - The Night of the Hunter, 1955, United States. Dir. Charles Laughton.
Most horror movies are not very scary.
The Night of the Hunter is terrifying.
It is also exciting, thrilling, dramatic, beautiful, sweet, nostalgic, soul-stirring, and comforting.
It is a great film.
It is terrifying in that it is not a horror film but a crime thriller, and rather than dealing with creatures and situations that are fantastical and unreal--such as slashers, chainsaw wielders, zombies, vampires, mummies, witches, ghosts, and monsters--it deals with something far more dark and evil--
People.
In this case, a single person, a man who will go to any length--including deception, sacrilege, false marriage, psychological abuse, murder, and going after children--to get what he wants, a false prophet, a wolf in sheep's clothing.
Lilian Gish begins the film by warning the children about such a man, as she quotes from the scriptures. She reminds them of three verses in Matthew that she has taught them and then introduces the fourth one:
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. (Matthew 5:18)
King Solomon in all his glory was not as beautiful as the lilies of the field. (Matthew 6:19)
Judge not lest you be judged. (Matthew 7:1)
Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. You shall know them by their fruits. (Matthew 7:15-16)
Her warning, from an imaginary heaven to them, as angelic, proves true.
Some children playing hide and seek find the body (we see the legs) of a woman in the steps to the basement.
Meanwhile, Harry Powell is coming, in an old convertible roadster, driving over the countryside, singing a hymn. "Leaning on the Everlasting Arms." He wears a hat on his head. He prays, but it is not clear what his relationship to God is. Later, in prison, he will tell a man his religion is one that he and the Lord worked out "betwixt ourselves." It is made up.
He asks God how many has it been. Six? Twelve? He cannot remember. We understand what he is counting. He stops at a burlesque show. He seems agitated by the performer. He speaks to himself. She needs taking care of. We see the letters on his left knuckles: H-A-T-E. The police enter and arrest him for stealing the car he is driving.
Meanwhile, the Harper children are playing in the yard when their father comes home.
"Daddy!" shouts John Harper, played by Bill Chapin in a fantastic performance. We hear love in his voice. He jumps up and runs towards the car. He is happy to see his father. But everything is different forever. His father has robbed a bank and needs somewhere to hide the money before the police arrive and arrest him. He hides the money. He makes the children swear not to tell. The police arrive and he is arrested.
John and his little sister Pearl watch as their father is taken away in handcuffs.
Ben Harper will bunk with Harry Powell in prison. Powell will learn of Harper's family. After Harper is hanged and Powell is released, he will come in the guise of a preacher to insinuate himself into the life of the community and for the rest of the film his only objective will be to do everything it takes to find that money.
He will win over the Spoons, Walt and Icey, as he tells those present at their ice cream parlor the story of good and evil, and we see that the letters on his right knuckles spell L-O-V-E. Icey Spoon is captivated. She demands he come to the upcoming picnic, and she pressures the children's mother, the widowed Willa Harper, to go for Harry Powell.
Willa Harper, played by Shelley Winters, will end up in the car at the bottom of the river.
The children will be on their own.
And their task will be to keep the money hidden and to stay alive.
We will spend the movie cheering for them, wanting to protect them, and adjuring them to run.
What will happen?
Watch this movie to find out.
And sit on the edge of your seat.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
FLAPDOODLE
When I was younger I was looking through the dictionary and came upon the word flapdoodle. I adopted it because I thought it such a great word, and I had never heard it spoken or seen it in print. I began to use it steadily.
Since then I have encountered it exactly once--in this movie.
The Night of the Hunter is the only text, printed or spoken, in which I remember encountering this word.
Evelyn Varden as the delicious Icey Spoon says,
That wasn't love. That was just flapdoodle. Have some fudge, lambs.
And this is shortly after she uses the word shilly-shallying.
Delicious.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
THE PLAYERS
The Night of the Hunter came about due to the talents of an extraordinary group of people. Let us get to know some of them a little better.
JAMES AGEE - Screenwriter
As for language, the screenplay was written by James Agee, the first literary writer I believe we have had in our list of films so far--meaning, a professional journalist, poet, and novelist. Most of the films we have seen have been written by either the director or professional screenwriters. Some were based on novels; others were original screenplays. If you want to check out James Agee, read his novel A Death in the Family. It is one of the great American novels. Agee also wrote the screenplay of The African Queen and the non-fiction work Let Us Now Praise Famous Men.
STANLEY CORTEZ - Cinematographer
As for images, this film was shot by cinematographer Stanley Cortez, a prolific cameraman who worked from the 1920s to 1980. Most notably, he lensed Orson Welles' second masterpiece after Citizen Kane, The Magnificent Ambersons. The Night of the Hunter contains a mixture of crisp, light exterior shots, including daylight landscapes and deep-black night shots, beautiful underwater shots, and deep-focus, high-contrast film noir interiors. The second unit photography includes sweeping overhead helicopter shots, multiple looks at rivers and rippling water, and looks at animals, such as a frog, a turtle, rabbits, and a tree fox. The film-noir portions, between him and Art Director Hillyard Brown, look incredible. Chiaroscuro lighting and shadows abound.
ROBERT MITCHUM - Harry Powell
Robert Mitchum was a man's man. He played in Westerns, war movies, and films noir. He had a long and steadily successful career, working in a range of styles and periods. He worked from the 1940s to the 1990s. His film noir work alone includes Out of the Past, Crossfire, The Racket, His Kind of Woman, Angel Face, Macao, Where Danger Lives, The Big Steal, Undercurrent, The Locket, Pursued, Thunder Road, Farewell My Lovely, the remake of The Big Sleep, and his most chilling performance, Cape Fear. He was one of the most watchable movie stars we have ever had. If you have an opportunity to watch a Robert Mitchum movie, take it.
LILLIAN GISH - Rachel Cooper
Lillian Gish was The First Lady of American Cinema. She, along with her sister Dorothy, was one of the first movie stars, in the silent films of the 1910s and 1920s. As children they were next-door neighbors of Mary Pickford. Lillian starred in D. W. Griffith's most famous films, including The Birth of a Nation, Intolerance, Broken Blossoms, Way Down East, and Orphans of the Storm. She had a long career on the stage, in film, both in silent and talkies, and as a director. She worked through to 1987, in The Whales of August, starring next to Bette Davis, when they were 94 and 89 respectively.
In The Night of the Hunter, Lillian plays Rachel Cooper, a caretaker of orphans who takes in Johnny and Pearl.
CHARLES LAUGHTON - Director
Charles Laughton was a giant of a man. He was a writer, producer, stage director, and an actor's actor. Daniel Day-Lewis credited him as being one of the greatest actors of his generation. He may be best known by filmgoers for playing Quasimodo, the Hunchback in 1939's The Hunchback of Notre Dame. He was nominated for three Oscars for acting and won for playing Henry VIII.
He trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and worked at the Old Vic, in West End, and on Broadway. He performed roles by Shakespeare, Chekhov, Moliere, Oscar Wilde, George Bernard Shaw, Bertolt Brecht, and Agathie Christie, among others. He was especially known for his meticulous work in creating the character of Galileo for Brecht's Galileo.
As an actor he starred in films from 1929 to 1962. Look at this list of significant roles in significant films--Dr. Moreau in Island of Lost Souls (1932), Emperor Nero in The Sign of the Cross (1932), Henry VIII in The Private Life of Henry VIII (1933), Edward Moulton-Barrett in The Barretts of Whimple Street (1934), Ruggles in The Ruggles of Red Gap (1935), Javert in Les Miserables (1935), Captain Bligh in Mutiny on the Bounty (1935), Rembrandt in Rembrandt (1936), Claudius in I, Claudius (1937), Quasimodo in The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939), Sir Canterville and The Ghost in The Canterville Ghost (1944), Captain Kidd in Captain Kidd (1945), Captain Kidd again in Abbott and Costello Meet Captain Kidd (1952), King Herod in Salome (1953), Henry Hobson in David Lean's Hobson's Choice (1954), Sir Roberts in Witness for the Prosecution (1957), Gracchus in Spartacus (1960), and Senator Cooley in Otto Preminger's Advise and Consent (1962).
The Night of the Hunter is the only film Charles Laughton directed, and it is one of the great films. Oh, that he had directed more.
027 - The Night of the Hunter, 1955, United States. Dir. Charles Laughton.
Most horror movies are not very scary.
The Night of the Hunter is terrifying.
It is also exciting, thrilling, dramatic, beautiful, sweet, nostalgic, soul-stirring, and comforting.
It is a great film.
It is terrifying in that it is not a horror film but a crime thriller, and rather than dealing with creatures and situations that are fantastical and unreal--such as slashers, chainsaw wielders, zombies, vampires, mummies, witches, ghosts, and monsters--it deals with something far more dark and evil--
People.
In this case, a single person, a man who will go to any length--including deception, sacrilege, false marriage, psychological abuse, murder, and going after children--to get what he wants, a false prophet, a wolf in sheep's clothing.
Lilian Gish begins the film by warning the children about such a man, as she quotes from the scriptures. She reminds them of three verses in Matthew that she has taught them and then introduces the fourth one:
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. (Matthew 5:18)
King Solomon in all his glory was not as beautiful as the lilies of the field. (Matthew 6:19)
Judge not lest you be judged. (Matthew 7:1)
Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. You shall know them by their fruits. (Matthew 7:15-16)
Her warning, from an imaginary heaven to them, as angelic, proves true.
Some children playing hide and seek find the body (we see the legs) of a woman in the steps to the basement.
Meanwhile, Harry Powell is coming, in an old convertible roadster, driving over the countryside, singing a hymn. "Leaning on the Everlasting Arms." He wears a hat on his head. He prays, but it is not clear what his relationship to God is. Later, in prison, he will tell a man his religion is one that he and the Lord worked out "betwixt ourselves." It is made up.
He asks God how many has it been. Six? Twelve? He cannot remember. We understand what he is counting. He stops at a burlesque show. He seems agitated by the performer. He speaks to himself. She needs taking care of. We see the letters on his left knuckles: H-A-T-E. The police enter and arrest him for stealing the car he is driving.
Meanwhile, the Harper children are playing in the yard when their father comes home.
"Daddy!" shouts John Harper, played by Bill Chapin in a fantastic performance. We hear love in his voice. He jumps up and runs towards the car. He is happy to see his father. But everything is different forever. His father has robbed a bank and needs somewhere to hide the money before the police arrive and arrest him. He hides the money. He makes the children swear not to tell. The police arrive and he is arrested.
John and his little sister Pearl watch as their father is taken away in handcuffs.
Ben Harper will bunk with Harry Powell in prison. Powell will learn of Harper's family. After Harper is hanged and Powell is released, he will come in the guise of a preacher to insinuate himself into the life of the community and for the rest of the film his only objective will be to do everything it takes to find that money.
He will win over the Spoons, Walt and Icey, as he tells those present at their ice cream parlor the story of good and evil, and we see that the letters on his right knuckles spell L-O-V-E. Icey Spoon is captivated. She demands he come to the upcoming picnic, and she pressures the children's mother, the widowed Willa Harper, to go for Harry Powell.
Willa Harper, played by Shelley Winters, will end up in the car at the bottom of the river.
The children will be on their own.
And their task will be to keep the money hidden and to stay alive.
We will spend the movie cheering for them, wanting to protect them, and adjuring them to run.
What will happen?
Watch this movie to find out.
And sit on the edge of your seat.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
FLAPDOODLE
When I was younger I was looking through the dictionary and came upon the word flapdoodle. I adopted it because I thought it such a great word, and I had never heard it spoken or seen it in print. I began to use it steadily.
Since then I have encountered it exactly once--in this movie.
The Night of the Hunter is the only text, printed or spoken, in which I remember encountering this word.
Evelyn Varden as the delicious Icey Spoon says,
That wasn't love. That was just flapdoodle. Have some fudge, lambs.
And this is shortly after she uses the word shilly-shallying.
Delicious.
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THE PLAYERS
The Night of the Hunter came about due to the talents of an extraordinary group of people. Let us get to know some of them a little better.
JAMES AGEE - Screenwriter
As for language, the screenplay was written by James Agee, the first literary writer I believe we have had in our list of films so far--meaning, a professional journalist, poet, and novelist. Most of the films we have seen have been written by either the director or professional screenwriters. Some were based on novels; others were original screenplays. If you want to check out James Agee, read his novel A Death in the Family. It is one of the great American novels. Agee also wrote the screenplay of The African Queen and the non-fiction work Let Us Now Praise Famous Men.
STANLEY CORTEZ - Cinematographer
As for images, this film was shot by cinematographer Stanley Cortez, a prolific cameraman who worked from the 1920s to 1980. Most notably, he lensed Orson Welles' second masterpiece after Citizen Kane, The Magnificent Ambersons. The Night of the Hunter contains a mixture of crisp, light exterior shots, including daylight landscapes and deep-black night shots, beautiful underwater shots, and deep-focus, high-contrast film noir interiors. The second unit photography includes sweeping overhead helicopter shots, multiple looks at rivers and rippling water, and looks at animals, such as a frog, a turtle, rabbits, and a tree fox. The film-noir portions, between him and Art Director Hillyard Brown, look incredible. Chiaroscuro lighting and shadows abound.
ROBERT MITCHUM - Harry Powell
Robert Mitchum was a man's man. He played in Westerns, war movies, and films noir. He had a long and steadily successful career, working in a range of styles and periods. He worked from the 1940s to the 1990s. His film noir work alone includes Out of the Past, Crossfire, The Racket, His Kind of Woman, Angel Face, Macao, Where Danger Lives, The Big Steal, Undercurrent, The Locket, Pursued, Thunder Road, Farewell My Lovely, the remake of The Big Sleep, and his most chilling performance, Cape Fear. He was one of the most watchable movie stars we have ever had. If you have an opportunity to watch a Robert Mitchum movie, take it.
LILLIAN GISH - Rachel Cooper
Lillian Gish was The First Lady of American Cinema. She, along with her sister Dorothy, was one of the first movie stars, in the silent films of the 1910s and 1920s. As children they were next-door neighbors of Mary Pickford. Lillian starred in D. W. Griffith's most famous films, including The Birth of a Nation, Intolerance, Broken Blossoms, Way Down East, and Orphans of the Storm. She had a long career on the stage, in film, both in silent and talkies, and as a director. She worked through to 1987, in The Whales of August, starring next to Bette Davis, when they were 94 and 89 respectively.
In The Night of the Hunter, Lillian plays Rachel Cooper, a caretaker of orphans who takes in Johnny and Pearl.
CHARLES LAUGHTON - Director
Charles Laughton was a giant of a man. He was a writer, producer, stage director, and an actor's actor. Daniel Day-Lewis credited him as being one of the greatest actors of his generation. He may be best known by filmgoers for playing Quasimodo, the Hunchback in 1939's The Hunchback of Notre Dame. He was nominated for three Oscars for acting and won for playing Henry VIII.
He trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and worked at the Old Vic, in West End, and on Broadway. He performed roles by Shakespeare, Chekhov, Moliere, Oscar Wilde, George Bernard Shaw, Bertolt Brecht, and Agathie Christie, among others. He was especially known for his meticulous work in creating the character of Galileo for Brecht's Galileo.
As an actor he starred in films from 1929 to 1962. Look at this list of significant roles in significant films--Dr. Moreau in Island of Lost Souls (1932), Emperor Nero in The Sign of the Cross (1932), Henry VIII in The Private Life of Henry VIII (1933), Edward Moulton-Barrett in The Barretts of Whimple Street (1934), Ruggles in The Ruggles of Red Gap (1935), Javert in Les Miserables (1935), Captain Bligh in Mutiny on the Bounty (1935), Rembrandt in Rembrandt (1936), Claudius in I, Claudius (1937), Quasimodo in The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939), Sir Canterville and The Ghost in The Canterville Ghost (1944), Captain Kidd in Captain Kidd (1945), Captain Kidd again in Abbott and Costello Meet Captain Kidd (1952), King Herod in Salome (1953), Henry Hobson in David Lean's Hobson's Choice (1954), Sir Roberts in Witness for the Prosecution (1957), Gracchus in Spartacus (1960), and Senator Cooley in Otto Preminger's Advise and Consent (1962).
The Night of the Hunter is the only film Charles Laughton directed, and it is one of the great films. Oh, that he had directed more.
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