This 1955 Southern Gothic thriller turned out to be a lot more bizarre than I anticipated, an eerie blend of film noir and children’s fairy tale, with a villain for the ages.
I actually fancied watching The Night of the Hunter at the Classic Cinemas as a part of their Classic Matinees program, but it wasn’t to be so I had to settle for streaming with its increasingly annoying ad breaks. I knew pretty much nothing about it, but the sheer menace of the title was enough to intrigue me, along with its reputation as a classic.
Robert Mitchum stars as Harry Powell, a serial killer posing as a preacher in Depression-era South. In case good citizens wonder about his unclergy-like knuckles, tattooed with HATE and LOVE, Powell has a cracking story to tell them in one of the film’s best scenes demonstrating his powers of persuasion. Powell has left a trail of dead widows he married and killed for money, and he’s about to charm his next victim.
It turns out that, having been jailed for stealing a car, Powell came to share a cell with a man called Ben Harper, condemned to death for murder and bank robbery. Right before his arrest, Harper made his two children swear to never reveal where he hid the stolen $10,000. Now that Harper took his secret to his grave, Powell intends to marry Harper’s widow Willa (Shelley Winters), and drag the hiding place out of little Pearl and her 10-year-old brother John. The big obstacle is that while Pearl takes to Powell right away, quiet steely-eyed John instantly perceives Powell’s true intentions.
I fully expected Powell and Willa’s relationship to be the heart of the film, but The Night of the Hunter takes a surprising turn by making the children the heroes of the story, and sending them on an unpredictable odyssey while being chased by a monster. It’s this strange mix of noir thriller and dark fairy tale that makes The Night of the Hunter so uniquely compelling. It is also a tale of good versus evil, weaving in biblical stories, hymns and morality tales. Though he is dripping insincerity and lies as easily as he breathes, Powell is a religious man, of a twisted kind who uses his faith to prey on those more vulnerable. Rachel, a stern but loving protector of John and Pearl, played by the silent era great Lillian Gish, is the light to Powell’s dark, a truly good Christian.
It’s true that some of the elements here may feel a tad dated, clunky and naive to the modern viewer, but like in many other great black-and-white thrillers of the period, the film’s use of light, shadow and silhouettes is simply superb. Powell is portrayed as a dark presence in the film’s most unnerving shots, such as when his shadow plays on the children’s bedroom wall before they even meet him. The lyrical and surreal imagery makes the movie feel rather more unusual than your typical film noir, such as the underwater sequence involving poor Willa that’s equally horrifying and beautiful. I also loved the scene of the children’s night time escape by the river, where their boat is watched by an assortment of animals, a fat toad, rabbits and birds, to a haunting song sung by Pearl.
Snake-tongued Powell is a perfect psychopath, charming, threatening, hilarious and barking mad. I don’t think I’ve seen Robert Mitchum onscreen before and he made an impression for sure; his voice especially has a quality that’s both seductive and authoritative, and is mesmerising in the moments when Powell sings to himself. I’m not familiar with Mitchum’s filmography, but I’d be surprised if he had many roles better than this one.
yggdrasille.com 