Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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55 of 63 people found the following review helpful:
A dark journey on the river of dreams..., September 28, 2001
There are images in Night of the Hunter, Charles Laughton's only film as a director, that will sear themselves into your brain and haunt you the rest of your life. That's not hyperbole; this film is simply that potent.Nothing about Night of the Hunter is "realistic" or even plausible - not the plot, not the dialogue, not the behavior of the child characters, not the photography. Yet, Night of the Hunter transcends realism utterly to do something far more challenging than merely create a simulacrum of reality. It creates a waking dream - a vivid hallucination of fearsome beasts, tragic heroines, children in peril, and ultimate redemption. It succeeds as a modern fairy tale in the darkest tradition of the brothers Grimm. Even comparisons to German expressionist cinema of the silent era (apt though they are) diminish the singular, elemental power of this film. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and Nosferatu are stunning, but it's hard to imagine either of them getting under the skin in quite the same way. The plot centers on the evil machinations of Harry Powell (Robert Mitchum), a murderous, psychotic "preacher" who does time with bank-robber Ben Harper (Peter Graves), father of two young children (Billy Chapin - brother of Father Knows Best star Lauren, and Sally Jane Bruce). Before being taken away by the police, Harper hid the money he stole and swore his children to secrecy about its location. No one else - not even their mother Willa (wonderfully played by Shelley Winters) - knows where the money is hidden. But after Ben Harper is hanged for the murder of two bank guards killed during the robbery, Harry Powell makes it his business to find out. Thus begins a cinematic odyssey like no other, filled with stark symbolism and eerie imagery. Perhaps the most unsettling image is the celebrated shot of Willa's corpse in the river, strapped into a car, her hair billowing out in the water like the aquatic plants that surround her. It is one of the strongest images in all cinema - comparable to the baby carriage racing down the Odessa steps in Battleship Potemkin, or the eyeglasses landing on the snow-covered battlefield of Dr. Zhivago. The central sequence is a boat journey that the children take down-river in an attempt to escape the evil preacher. Though obviously filmed on a sound stage and filled with incongruous and frankly theatrical moments, the overall effect is nearly overwhelming in the way it evokes childhood fears of abandonment and pursuit. Every time I see it, I fall completely under its spell. Stanley Cortez's breathtaking black-and-white cinematography is complemented by Walter Schumann's atmospheric score. There is a moment during the river journey when Pearl (the little girl) begins singing a children's lullaby. The orchestra swells and turns the song into a dreamy, meditative piece of night music - filled with dread, sadness, and awe. It's not at all realistic, but if that scene doesn't give you chills, then you're just made of stone. It is fitting that Lillian Gish plays the children's savior, the elderly Mrs. Cooper - a righteous woman with a steely constitution. Gish was there for the birth of cinema itself. Her presence in Night of the Hunter is like seal of approval, a testimony to this film's enduring status as a classic. My only reservation with this otherwise superb DVD is the warning at the beginning that "This film has been modified from its original version. It has been formatted to fit your TV". Either that's flatly untrue (as Night of the Hunter looks perfectly at home in 4:3), or MGM has cheated us by not giving a true American classic its due.
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32 of 41 people found the following review helpful:
"Wherefore By Their Fruits, Ye Shall Know Them...", June 14, 2004
From the novel by Davis Grubb - the first and only film directed and purportedly written by the flamboyant and swashbucking actor, Charles Laughton. In Robert Mitchum's biography, he stated that Laughton found the script by James Agee (co-writer of the African Queen) totally unacceptable. Laughton paid off Agee, sent him packing and rewrote virtually the entire script himself, uncredited.This 1955 melodrama cum Grimm's Fairy Tale is brilliantly directed, acted, scored and the cinematography by Stanley Cortez is breathtakingly creepy and beautiful all at the same time. Mitchum plays the sexually repressed, thieving, lying, cheating and quite sociopathic Rev. Harry Powell. The ol' Rev. got caught in a stolen vehicle while watching a "hootchie cootchie" dancer in a burlesque establishment and is sentenced to 30 days in the state penitentiary. It just so happens as fate takes a turn that the scheming Rev's bunkmate is in the clink for killing two men and robbing a bank of over $10,000.00 that has never been recovered. The Rev. tries to get the "sinner" to tell him where the money is hidden but the man won't budge. The man is hanged for his crime, the Rev. is let out of jail and goes to find the man's wife, played by Shelley Winters, his two young children and , of course, the loot! The Rev. even marries the young widow to get to the money and many evils ensue... Lillian Gish turns in a wonderful performance as a benefactor of the children. I don't want to spoil the premise of the movie as other reviewers have done. Just know that it's a horror/fairytale/melodrama/satire all rolled into a great piece of filmaking! If you liked Mitchum in "Cape Fear" you will love him as the sociopathic Rev. Powell! Happy Watching!
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19 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
Masterpiece which stretches realism to a terrifying extreme, July 30, 2001
Directed by Charles Laughton from a screenplay by James Agee, "Night of the Hunter" was hated by critics and bombed at the box office when it was released in 1955. Now, however, it is considered a classic masterpiece, one which Roger Ebert calls "the greatest of all American films." Starring Robert Mitchum as a psychopathic preacher in relentless pursuit of two children who possess their dead father's stolen fortune, the suspense starts in the very first frame as Lillian Gish, cast as an elderly woman who later shelters the children, reads prophetic biblical verses aloud. This sets the weirdly expressionistic tone of the film, which takes place in a small town on a riverbank some time during the depression. Shelly Winters is cast as the young widow whose husband has just been hanged for murder. As the trusting mother of the two children Billy Chapin and Sally Jane Bruce, she soon becomes one of the reverend's many victims. There's a bit of comic relief introduced with a nosey neighbor who hasn't a clue about how treacherous Mitchum really is; but otherwise, the tension is almost unbearable throughout.Filmed in black and white, the cinematography by Stanley Cortez is nothing short of brilliant. He knew just when to use natural elements such as frogs and owls to set the scenes. And his shots of Mitchum's shadow falling across the wall of the children's bedroom was great, as was his shot of the elderly Gish in a pose evocative of Whistler's Mother. The acting was excellent and I'm shocked that there was not even one nomination for an award of any kind. I watched this video in a kind of daze of my own as the tension and suspense kept mounting. And just when I thought I knew where the story was going, there would be another twist. It seemed to take realism and stretch it to its extreme, and the feeling I had throughout was that of a rubber band about to pop. It's rare I get so involved in watching a video. One thing I know for sure is that I will never forget this film. Highly recommended. But be prepared to be scared.
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