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.


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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.