Saturday, March 28, 2020

The Night of the Hunter

The Night of the Hunter is a 1955 thriller directed by Charles Laughton and starring Robert Mitchum, Shelley Winters, and Lillian Gish. Peter Graves is also in this. I have a low tolerance for child endangerment plots and had never seen this movie because of that. The children's plight is hard to watch, but this film is a masterpiece. Mitchum is a national treasure.

trailer:



Criterion says,
The Night of the Hunter —incredibly, the only film the great actor Charles Laughton ever directed— is truly a stand-alone masterwork. A horror movie with qualities of a Grimm fairy tale, it stars a sublimely sinister Robert Mitchum as a traveling preacher named Harry Powell (he of the tattooed knuckles), whose nefarious motives for marrying a fragile widow, played by Shelley Winters, are uncovered by her terrified young children. Graced by images of eerie beauty and a sneaky sense of humor, this ethereal, expressionistic American classic—also featuring the contributions of actress Lillian Gish and writer James Agee—is cinema’s most eccentric rendering of the battle between good and evil.
Film Site calls it "a truly compelling, haunting, and frightening classic masterpiece thriller". Roger Ebert calls it a Great Movie. Rotten Tomatoes has a critics consensus score of 99%.

16 comments:

  1. ...a cast of actors that I remember!

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  2. I think I may have seen this done years ago. I read through the wiki article about it and the plot is very familiar. It was interesting to read that, according to Wikipedia:
    "the influential film magazine Cahiers du cinéma selected The Night of the Hunter in 2008 as the second-best film of all time, behind Citizen Kane"

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  3. i can't remember if I've seen this one. Not a huge Mitchum fan, but he was one of the best tough guys

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    1. He was good in good guy roles, too. And those eyes!

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  4. This is a great movie. The children's plight is hard to watch, but this movie is worth seeing. (I normally don't like movies with child endangerment in their plots.)

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    1. I agree on every point :) I'm glad I finally made myself watch it :)

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  5. I watched it years ago, really good.

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    1. I should have, I really should have. It is amazing!

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  6. I haven't seen this one but Robert Mitchum is an amazing actor. Stay healhty!

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    1. He is, I agree :) This movie is worth re-watching. Memphis' case count goes up a lot as we have access to tests. We had our first death yesterday :( Scary :( I hope you and yours are able to stay healthy through this!

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  7. This looks like a powerful film. I would like to see it. Valerie

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  8. How in the world did I get so far behind? I KNOW. It is because I've been offline due to my *#^TI# internet provider.

    There are some powerful names even I've heard of in this movie. It is one I may watch AFTER I catch up and get out of my funk.

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    1. And now the video is gone lol I'll try to find another, but I may end up having to post a trailer instead...

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