Night of the Hunter (1955)

Directed by Charles Laughton (1899-1962).

Screenplay by James Agee (1909-1955)

Night of the Hunter was not a particularly successful film when it came out. It was Laughton's first and last directorial role. Laughton had been an extremely successful actor in England, on Broadway, and in film, winner of an Academy Award for Best Actor, but critics and audiences hated the film and he never made another. Today, it's considered one of the greatest of the film noir, and it's number 25 on BFIs list of the greatest films of all time.

One of the reasons that the film originally failed is that it was, in a sense, totally unexpected. More than perhaps any film of the era, it blends film techniques and ideas from German Expressionism with fairy tale, fantasy, and changes in storytelling perspective. All of these are pulled into a tight psychological nightmare, which like the best of the noirs, exposes and delves into the sinister undercurrents that hide beneath the glossy trappings of American life. Robert Mitchum's "Reverend" Harry Powell, the original man with L-O-V-E tattooed on one hand and H-A-T-E on the other became the icon of evil for future filmmakers and many of the scenes in this movie have been copied in others. We might consider the idea that among the reasons for the film's commercial failure is that some of the truths it told were too intense, too close to the bone. Compare, for example Night of the Hunter with the Hitchcock thriller Rear Window (1954). Rear Window is one of my favorite movies. Some years I show it in this spot in the class. However, Rear Window is light by comparison to Night of the Hunter. It was also much, much more successful.

James Agee (1909-1955) wrote the screenplay from the a book of the same name by Davis Grubb. Agee was one of the most important analytical and critical voices of his era. Formed by his experiences during the depression, Agee chronicled the lives of sharecroppers in Alabama, publishing his work as Let Us Now Praise Famous Men (1941). The book was a complete failure, but like Night of the Hunter is now seen as a classic, foreshadowing an entirely new form of journalism. His book A Death in the Family, published posthumously in 1957, won a Pulitzer Prize. Agee suffered from alcoholism, which almost certainly killed him (he had a fatal heart attack at 45). The screenplay he gave Laughton was over 300 pages long and would have resulted in a 6 hour movie. Laughton cut the work to produce the current 92 minute film... and didn't get along with Agee. But, the screenwriting credit on the movie is Agee and most modern analysts agree that it is Agee's work.

Robert Mitchum (1917-1997) Mitchum is widely considered one of the great stars of the mid 20th century. He played in more than 100 movies and TV shows from the early 1940s to the 1990s. At the time of Night of the Hunter Mitchum was considered a B lister, known primarily for his roles in various film noir of the late 1940s and early 1950s. By the late 1950s, Mitchum was at the height of his success and through the 1970s had major parts in a series of well known films including The Longest Day, The Sundowners, Cape Fear, Ryan's Daughter, and That Championship Season. Mitchum was well liked by directors, but maybe not so much by fellow actors. For better or worse, he seems to have understood acting as much the same as any other job. He said that acting was very simple: "show up on time, know his lines, hit his marks, and go home." He was known for marking up his appearances in his scripts with "n.a.r." for no action required. He was also dogged by well deserved controversy. He assaulted one female reporter at the premiere for That Championship Season (1982) and threw a baseball into the face of another female reporter. He was sued for 30 million. In a 1983 interview in Esquire he made racist, sexist, and antisemitic statements including Holocaust denial. He apologized for these later, but they were not the only time he said such things. Mitchum was a lifelong Republican who campaigned for Barry Goldwater in 1964.

Lillian Gish (1893-1993) Well, we've seen here before...remember? Gish was perhaps D. W. Griffith's favorite actor. She played Elsie Stoneman, one of the main characters of Birth of a Nation (you'll recall that she's held prisoner by the evil Silas Lynch). Gish played in many, many other Griffith films as well including Intolerance (1916), Broken Blossoms (1919), Way Down East (1920). She was personally close to Griffith and continued to support him long after others had left. Her last Griffith film was 1928. Gish fell out of favor as movies changed but staged a strong comeback in the 1940s and 1950s. She was nominated for an Oscar for her role in Duel in the Sun (1946). Starting in the late 1940s she took numerous roles on TV shows. Her acting career continued until her final picture The Whales of August filmed when she was 93. Gish, never married... unusual for a star of her era. She was an active member of the America First Committee, an "non-interventionist" pressure group headed by Robert Wood and Charles Lindbergh. America First opposed American entry into World War II and was right on the line between discouraging American participation in the war and active support of Nazi Germany. America First was accused, almost certainly correctly, of embracing antisemitism and fascism. America First disbanded after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Gish was a lifelong Republican and close friend of Ronald and Nancy Reagan.

Shelley Winters (1920-2006) was born Shirley Schrift. Her father was an immigrant from Grymalow in Ukraine. Her mother was a first generation American whose family was also from Grymalow. She began on Broadway in the early 1940s but quickly moved to Hollywood. Her acting career spanned about 60 years and included more than 160 roles in movies and on TV as well as additional roles on Broadway. Some of her biggest roles were in A Place in the Sun (1952), The Diary of Anne Frank (1959), A Patch of Blue (1966), and The Posiden Adventure (1972). She was nominated for Oscars for all of these and won for two of them. Her career continued into the 1990s when she often played a parody of herself on TV. She had a recurring role as the grandmother on Roseanne, a very successful sitcom of the era. Winters was married four times and her love live allegedly included William Holden, Sean Connery, Burt Lancaster, Errol Flynn, and Marlin Brando. Winters was deeply engaged in politics and campaigned for JFK in 1960. She was involved in the civil rights movement and appeared with other stars at the "Stars for Freedom" rally in Selma the night before the march in 1965. Winters, of course, was a lifelong Democrat. Discussions on the set must have been interesting...

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