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January 27, 2005

The Night of the Hunter

The Night of the Hunter, a the only credited film by actor Charles Laughton with a screenplay by James Agee (based on a book by Davis Grubb) is remarkable for primarily one reason: the performance of Robert Mitchum as disturbed preacher Harry Powell. Dressed in a black suit and hat, with "love" tattooed across the fingers on one hand and hate on the other, he is an unstoppable, unpredictable horrific force, and for that The Night of the Hunter shines through as a classic.

The story centers around two children, noble little John Harper and his younger sister, the doll-faced Pearl. One day, their father Ben comes home with thousands of dollars he has robbed from a bank and begs them to hide it. He is then caught by the police and hanged, leaving only his wife Willa to take care of the children. While in prison, Ben had met with a preacher named Harry Powell, who has a disturbed sense of moral justice. After failing to get information about the money out of Ben, Powell then decides to go after the mother and children. When it becomes clear that she knows nothing, he begins to hound the children. Soon, Willa gets in the way and he kills her.

The children run away and are taken in by a loving elderly woman who has adopted several other children. But Powell is hot on their trail, and a confronation late at night brings ruin for one party.

The story itself is at times suspenseful and at othertimes a bit long-winded and drifty. For example, after the children are attacked by the preacher, they set off down the river rather than alerting the authorities. Granted, children are stupid, but it still seems unlikely that they'd simply mum up about it all and get away. Meanwhile, the failure of their uncle, who discovers the mother in the lake, to tell anything about her is questionable. In addition, the scenes in which we see the children interacting with their new family, both before and after the confrontation scene, are a bit too Rockwellian in their apple pie charm.

In between this fat is a very engaging and suspenseful story about a preacher with a twisted set of values, who clearly believes that he is correct not sinning. The idea that such a seemingly harmless person could embody pure evil is disturbing. Furthermore, he simply keeps on coming at them, an unstoppable force. An excellent shot is of Powell on a horse on the very top of a hill, almost painted on the horizon as he walks slowly toward them. He moves slow, but he'll eventually catch up, and this implied confidence is an excellent suspense device.

The children were written to be a little annoying, especially Pearl who always seems on the verge of telling Powell the whereabouts of the money. However, great performances by all, from Willa as a newly converted religious devout, to the unmatchable Robert Mitchum.

The world they live in is somewhat unreal. Roger Ebert excuses this as intentional - that Laughton was trying to create this saccharine existence to then disrupt it with the unholiness of the preacher. However, I think it goes overboard, and the more removed from reality it is, the less impact the suspense carries. The world is eventually divided into the safe country homes and the dangerous, neon sign-filled city streets, and the parrallel is a bit laughable.

Ultimately, the film is about the suspense and not the bits in between, and if you can ignore those, you'll be fine. Furthermore, the end scene, in which John mistakes Powell for his father, is particularly intriguing, as it indicates a strong subtext of hurt and anxiety that he has been unable to overcome.

3 Hate-filled stars / 4 stars

Posted by nick at January 27, 2005 11:04 PM

Comments

Posted by: jack at January 28, 2005 02:14 AM