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The Night of the Hunter (film)

January 20, 2023

The Night of the Hunter is a 1955 American film noir thriller directed by Charles Laughton and starring Robert Mitchum, Shelley Winters and Lillian Gish. The screenplay by James Agee was based on the 1953 novel of the same title by Davis Grubb. The plot focuses on a corrupt faux minister serial killer who charms an unsuspecting widow in order to get his hands on $10,000 in stolen bank loot hidden by her executed husband.

The Night of the Hunter
Theatrical release poster with Robert Mitchum's character's upper fingers displaying LOVE on the right hand and HATE on the left.
Directed byCharles Laughton
Screenplay byJames Agee
Based onThe Night of the Hunter
1953 novel
by Davis Grubb
Produced byPaul Gregory
StarringRobert Mitchum
Shelley Winters
Lillian Gish
Billy Chapin
Peter Graves
CinematographyStanley Cortez
Edited byRobert Golden
Music byWalter Schumann
Production
company
Paul Gregory Productions
Distributed byUnited Artists
Release date
  • July 26, 1955 (1955-07-26)
Running time
92 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$600,000

The novel and film draw on the true story of Harry Powers, who was hanged in 1932 for the murder of two widows and three children in Clarksburg, West Virginia. The film's lyrical and expressionistic style, borrowing techniques from silent film, sets it apart from other Hollywood films of the 1940s and 1950s, and it has influenced such later directors such as Rainer Werner Fassbinder,[1] Robert Altman,[2] and Martin Scorsese.[3]

Despite receiving negative reviews upon its original release, it has been positively re-evaluated in later decades and is now considered one of the greatest films ever made. It was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry in 1992.[4][5] The influential French film magazine Cahiers du Cinéma selected The Night of the Hunter in 2008 as the second-best film of all time, behind Citizen Kane.[6] In spite of the film's later acclaim, the negative reaction to its premiere made it Charles Laughton's only feature film as director.

Plot

In West Virginia in the Great Depression, Reverend Harry Powell is a misogynistic serial killer and self-proclaimed preacher traveling along the Ohio River, who justifies murdering widows he marries for their money as doing God's work. After reaching a small town sometime after his latest murder, Powell ends up being arrested for driving a stolen car and serves 30 days at Moundsville Penitentiary. There he shares a cell with Ben Harper, an impoverished father of two who killed two men in a bank robbery for $10,000[a] he stole so that his children wouldn’t go hungry. With the police about to catch him, Harper made his children, John and Pearl, promise to never reveal where he hid the money. Despite Powell's attempts to worm it out of him, Harper takes the secret to his grave.

Following his release, Powell makes his way to Harper's tiny hometown, where he charms the townsfolk and woos Harper's widow, Willa, a waitress for Walter Spoon and his wife Icey.[8] Overnight Powell manages to win the town's trust and weds Willa; only John remains instinctively distrustful. Powell suspects that John knows where the money is hidden and in a cornering John accidentally reveals that he indeed does. Later as Powell begins to question Pearl, John reminds her of the promise whereby he inadvertently gives away that Pearl knows the secret too. Willa becomes deluded that Powell married her to redeem her soul, and begins preaching alongside him in tent revivals. However, she later overhears Powell threatening Pearl to reveal the money’s whereabouts whereupon she's disabused of her faith in Powell.

Powell murders Willa the same night, dumping her body in the river while spreading the tale that she left her family for a life of sin. Powell proceeds to threaten the children before learning the money is hidden inside Pearl's doll. While fishing, Birdie Steptoe, an elderly friend of the family, discovers Willa’s body, but refrains from telling the police in fear that he will be accused of the murder.

The children escape an enraged Powell and attempt to seek refuge with Birdie, who has drunk himself into a stupor. They use their father's small johnboat to flee down the river, and eventually find sanctuary with Rachel Cooper, a tough old woman who looks after stray children.

Powell tracks them down, but Rachel sees through his deceptions and runs him off her property with a shotgun. Powell vows to come back after dark, and does. During the all-night standoff, Rachel gives Powell a face full of birdshot, and he flees into her barn. She summons the state police, who arrive and arrest Powell for Willa’s murder. John breaks down during Powell’s handcuffing, having a flashback of his father’s fate. He beats the doll against the struggling man in anguish, spilling the cash out.

During Powell’s trial John once again transposes Powell for his father and cannot bring himself to testify against him. Following Powell's sentencing, Rachel takes John and the other children away as a deranged Icey leads a lynch mob toward the police station. Powell is escorted out the back to safety just in time, but the prison hangman promises to see him again soon. John and Pearl then have their first Christmas together with Rachel and their new family.

Cast

Production

 
Director Charles Laughton in 1934

This was the only film directed by the actor Charles Laughton.[10] Laughton had directed plays on Broadway, most produced by his friend Paul Gregory.

Development

Harold Matson, a literary agent, sent a copy of the 1953 novel The Night of the Hunter by Davis Grubb to Paul Gregory.[11] He sent the book to Laughton, who loved it and described it as a "nightmarish Mother Goose story".[12] Laughton contacted Grubb, and the two of them instantly got along very well. He traveled to Philadelphia, where Grubb lived, and they spent five days discussing ideas for the film. Grubb had studied art in college, so he offered to draw sketches as a form of inspiration. Laughton loved the drawings, and many of them were used in the film's storyboard.[13]

At first Grubb was being considered to write the screenplay himself, but the studio wanted to hire someone with experience writing for films.[14] James Agee was hired as the screenwriter because he was from the South and had experience writing about the Depression.[15] Agee began writing in April 1954, and finished in June, but his script was 293 pages: much too long for a feature film. Laughton made significant rewrites to the script, and his was the version used for shooting, even though he insisted that Agee be credited as the only writer.[16][9] Agee's original script ended with a shot of children's faces floating among the stars, an idea that was eventually moved to the opening of the film.[17] Throughout 1954, Gregory worked with the Production Code Administration to change the script to meet the guidelines of the Production Code. There was much concern about depicting a preacher on screen as an evil person, and Gregory made an effort to make the character of the Reverend not appear to be a real, ordained minister. Eventually the script was approved, but Protestant groups who had read the script continued to object to the film's production.[9]

While preparing for the filming, Laughton studied silent films by viewing their original nitrate prints, including The Birth of a Nation, Intolerance, and The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. He wanted to "restore the power of silent films to talkies."[18]

The budget of the film was a little under $600,000,[19] of which about $75,000 was for the rights to adapt the novel.[20]

Casting

Laughton's initial thought after reading the novel was to cast himself in the role of the preacher, but Gregory convinced him that no studio would finance a film unless they cast someone else.[21][22] For the most part, he did not hold traditional auditions for the actors; he simply met with them to get a sense of their personalities and whether they were right for the role.[23]

Laughton considered casting Gary Cooper as Harry Powell, but Cooper did not accept the role as he thought it might be detrimental to his career.[24] John Carradine expressed interest in the role of the reverend,[25] as did Laurence Olivier, but his schedule was not free for two years.[26] Robert Mitchum was eager for the part of the preacher. When he auditioned, a moment that particularly impressed Charles Laughton was when Laughton described the character as "a diabolical shit," and Mitchum promptly answered "Present!"[24] Laughton liked Mitchum for the role partly due to his sexual persona, but Grubb was concerned about the character of the preacher being considered sexual. Laughton told him, "If you want to sell God, you have to be sexy."[27]

Agnes Moorehead, Grace Kelly, and Betty Grable were all considered for the role of Willa Harper.[28] In the end Laughton chose Shelley Winters because he felt she had a vulnerable quality and was more of a serious actor than a movie star; she committed to the role only two weeks before filming began.[29] In her 1989 memoir, Winters described this as "probably the most thoughtful and reserved performance I ever gave".[30]

Laughton's first pick for the role of Rachel Cooper was his wife Elsa Lanchester.[31] Jane Darwell and Louise Fazenda also were considered.[32] Lanchester, for reasons unknown to Laughton, turned down the role, suggesting silent movie star Lillian Gish for the role.[31] A doubtful Laughton went to New York for the purpose of watching films in which Gish starred. These included the shorts and feature films she made with pioneer D.W. Griffith. Gish had gotten word of his watching these old movies, and when she asked him why, he replied, "When I first went to the movies, they sat in their seats straight and leaned forward. Now they slump down, with their heads back, and eat candy and popcorn. I want them to sit up straight again."[33]

Filming

 
A lighting arrangement in The Night of the Hunter. Note the placement of the key light off the subject (Lillian Gish) to create a silhouette while illuminating Robert Mitchum in the background. This plays off the conventional association of light with good and darkness with evil.

Principal photography of The Night of the Hunter began on August 15 and ended on October 7, 1954, a total of 36 days of shooting.[34][35] Laughton kept the editor and musical composer on set during filming, which was very uncommon at the time.[36] Mitchum originally suggested Laughton to shoot the film in authentic Appalachian locations, but the director could not afford the budget to do on-location shooting.[citation needed] Besides, he wanted to create the film's unique look on Hollywood sound stages and found what he was looking for at Pathé, Republic Studios, and the Rowland V. Lee ranch in the San Fernando Valley.[37] Certain cutaway shots and compositing shots were shot in West Virginia.[38] Laughton hired Terry Sanders as second unit director in order to scout and shoot the river scenes because he had recently directed an Academy Award-winning short film A Time Out of War, which mostly took place on a river.[39]

Rather than shooting with traditional takes, Laughton had the crew only slate at the beginning of each reel of film and let the camera roll continuously until the reel ran out. This was so that he could direct the actors without waiting to reset the camera and sound equipment, not unlike the way silent films used to be directed.[40] Shelley Winters told Laughton she had this image of Willa as being "a fly fascinated by a spider, and she very willingly walks into this web". He liked this image and told her to channel that into the performance.[41] Mitchum's performance in the film has been described as Brechtian acting, which Laughton had extensive experience with.[42] According to Lillian Gish, Laughton was very unsure of himself on set as this was his first time directing a film, and when someone would give him a suggestion he would start talking about fears that his whole vision was wrong.[43] Laughton's directing style was supportive and respectful of the actors' input and several of the actors have said it was among their favorite professional experiences.[citation needed]

The director of photography was Stanley Cortez, who also shot Orson Welles' 1942 film The Magnificent Ambersons. Because Laughton had very little experience working with film, Cortez would visit his house to explain various concepts of camera lenses, camera heights, and what effect each of them gave.[44] Laughton told Cortez that the nitrate prints of the silent movies that he had been watching for research impressed them with how sharp they looked, so he asked Cortez to create that same sharpness for The Night of the Hunter.[45] The studio brought most of the crew from a recent film Black Tuesday because they had worked so well together, and Cortez had experimented with a new black-and-white film Kodak Tri-X on that production, with great results. He chose to shoot certain scenes of this film on Tri-X because it had a sharp contrast that would help fulfill Laughton's vision.[46][47] The studio however, tried to convince them to shoot on color film instead because they thought it would sell more tickets. Gregory fought to keep it black-and-white: "I could not see this film being in color."[48] The style of the cinematography was split up between the two units: the first unit of the crew shot the scenes in and around the Harpers' home, which were very dark, whereas the second unit shot the scenes traveling along the river, which were designed to look more like images from the children's perspective. One scene in particular that Cortez has spoken about is in the bedroom after Willa has overheard Powell threatening the children. He lit this scene with a halo of light surrounding Willa's head on the pillow, foreshadowing that her death is imminent.[49] Cortez also brought back the Iris shot in one scene, as an homage to silent films.[50]

Laughton drew on the harsh, angular look of German expressionist films of the 1920s, which is especially noticeable in the art direction by Hilyard Brown.[51][52] He had the idea that children notice only certain details of their surroundings that they are focused on, which is why some set pieces are somewhat abstract and minimal: neon lights that are not attached to a particular store, white picket fences that are not surrounding any house, the barn along the river that looks like a painting, and the "chapel-like" parents' bedroom.[53] The river scenes with the children were all shot on a sound stage.[54] The shot of John looking out of the barn window and seeing Powell's silhouette on the horizon was created using a little person and a miniature horse.[55] The underwater scene showing Willa's dead body was shot in a studio using a mannequin with a custom mask to make it look like Winters.[9]

Score

The film's score, composed and arranged by Walter Schumann in close association with Laughton, features a combination of nostalgic and expressionistic orchestral passages. The film has two original songs by Schumann, "Lullaby" (sung by Kitty White, whom Schumann discovered in a nightclub)[56] and "Pretty Fly" (originally sung by Sally Jane Bruce as Pearl, but later dubbed by an actress named Betty Benson).[57] A recurring musical device involves the preacher making his presence known by singing the traditional hymn "Leaning on the Everlasting Arms".[47] RCA Victor was impressed by the score, so in 1955 they released a soundtrack with Schumann's score and Laughton narrating an abridged version of the story, also written by Grubb.[56][47]

Post production

The film's editor, Robert Golden, has said that after he screened the complete film to one of the United Artists studio executives for the first time, the executive told Golden, "It's too arty."[58]

Release

 
An image from the original trailer for The Night of the Hunter

The Night of the Hunter premiered on July 26, 1955, in Des Moines, Iowa, a special event to raise money for the YMCA in Gregory's hometown, which included a parade and a broadcast on The Tonight Show.[59][9] It later had its premiere in Los Angeles on August 26, 1955,[60] and in New York on September 29, 1955.[59]

To promote the film, the Los Angeles Herald-Express serialized the film's script throughout April 1955.[61] The film also received an extensive promotional campaign from United Artists,[62] but they weren't sure about the best way to promote it because it didn't fall into any typical film genres, and the promotional material didn't give a good sense of what the film was about.[63] However, one of the film's advertisements won an award for being in the top 50 best advertisements of 1954 from the American Institute of Graphic Arts.[9] According to Paul Gregory, "absolutely no money was spent on promotion...United Artists didn't have the muscle, desire, or intelligence to handle the picture."[64] He originally had the idea to tour the film "road show style", stopping at certain cities that were familiar with Laughton's plays, but he could not convince the studio.[19]

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Cheyenne denied the film's release, and Gregory wanted to put together a lawsuit against them, but the studio would not allow him to.[65]

Reception

Contemporaneous

The Night of the Hunter was a total flop with both audiences and critics at its initial release, and Laughton never directed another film.[10] Bosley Crowther of The New York Times called the film "a weird and intriguing endeavor," adding: "unfortunately the story and the thesis presented by Mr. Grubb had to be carried through by Mr. Laughton to a finish—and it is here that he goes wrong. For the evolution of the melodrama, after the threatened, frightened children flee home, angles off into that allegorical contrast of the forces of Evil and Good."[66] Gene Arneel of Variety summarized: "The relentless terror of Davis Grubb's novel got away from Paul Gregory and Charles Laughton in their translation of Night of the Hunter. This start for Gregory as producer and Laughton as director is rich in promise but the completed product, bewitching at times, loses sustained drive via too many offbeat touches that have a misty effect."[67] Harrison's Reports wrote, "The picture might have some appeal for those who patronize art houses in search of the unusual in movie fare, but the great majority of those who see it will look upon it as a choppily-edited, foggy melodrama peopled with foggy characters."[68] Life summed up the film, "If sometimes it strains too hard at being simple and winds up being pretentious, it still is one of the year's most interesting and provocative films."[69]

The Legion of Decency gave the film a B because it degraded marriage, and the Protestant Motion Picture Council rated it "objectionable," saying that any religious person would be offended by it. The film was also banned in Memphis, Tennessee, by the city's head of censorship, Lloyd Binford.[70][9] Great Britain rated the film "adults only."[9]

The film was shot in black and white in the styles and motifs of German Expressionism (bizarre shadows, stylized dialogue, distorted perspectives, surrealistic sets, odd camera angles) to create a simplified and disturbing mood that reflects the sinister character of Powell, the nightmarish fears of the children, and the sweetness of their savior Rachel. Due to the film's visual style and themes, it is also often categorized as a film noir.

Laughton took this commercial failure of his first film personally, and never attempted to make another film.[71]

Retrospective

At the time of its release, The Night of the Hunter received mixed reviews, but over the years it has been reassessed and is now an undisputed classic.[72] It began as a cult film, with a small group of fans, and regularly played at museums and in revival houses. Its popularity grew as a new generation of children were exposed to the film when it played on television.[73] In the 1970s, as the field of film criticism began to expand, many articles were written about the film.[74]

Roger Ebert wrote, "It is one of the most frightening of movies, with one of the most unforgettable of villains, and on both of those scores, it holds up ... well after four decades."[75]

The Night of the Hunter was rated No. 90 on Bravo's 100 Scariest Movie Moments. In a 2007 listing of the 100 Most Beautiful Films, Cahiers du cinéma ranked The Night of the Hunter No. 2.[76] It is among the top ten in the BFI list of the 50 films you should see by the age of 14. In 2008, it was ranked as the 71st greatest movie of all time by Empire magazine in its issue of The 500 Greatest Movies of All Time.[77] In 2012, Sight and Sound magazine's decennial "Greatest Films of All Time" poll ranked it as the 63rd greatest film ever made; in 2022, the same poll put it at No. 25.[78][79]

In 1992, the United States Library of Congress deemed The Night of the Hunter to be "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant", and selected the film for preservation in its National Film Registry.[80] On Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 93% based on 80 reviews, with a weighted average rating of 9.10/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Featuring Robert Mitchum's formidable performance as a child-hunting preacher, The Night of the Hunter is a disturbing look at good and evil."[81]

American Film Institute recognition

Mark Callaghan, the lead singer for the Australian band The Riptides, parodied Mitchum's character in the music video for the 1982 track, Hearts And Flowers.

Reverend Harry Powell's speech about love and hate has become a memorable moment in film history. In the 1989 Spike Lee film Do the Right Thing, the character Radio Raheem wears brass knuckles saying "love" and "hate" on each hand and gives a speech that is an almost verbatim copy of Powell's.[82]

The Coen brothers have referenced The Night of the Hunter in several of their own films, including The Big Lebowski (the line "the Dude abides," which is an echo of Rachel's closing line "They abide, and they endure") and True Grit (the visual style of Rooster's night ride with Mattie, which is similar to that of John and Pearl's river journey, and the use of the music from Leaning on the Everlasting Arms).[83]

In the episode "Fall" of the television series Better Call Saul, The Night of the Hunter is shown playing in a retirement home as series protagonist Jimmy McGill attempts to deceive a number of his clients. Reverend Powell's hand gestures during his "right hand, left hand" speech are juxtaposed with similar gestures made by Jimmy, highlighting his charismatic but duplicitous nature.

In Emerald Fennell's 2020 film Promising Young Woman a clip from The Night of the Hunter is playing in a scene where the protagonist's parents are watching TV on the couch. In a later scene, the song “The Pretty Fly,” from the soundtrack to The Night of the Hunter, plays after the protagonist makes a disturbing discovery.

Home media

The Night of the Hunter was released on DVD by MGM Home Entertainment in 2000.[84] On November 16, 2010, the film was released on Blu-ray and DVD by The Criterion Collection in association with the University of California, Los Angeles film archive.[84] Among other supplemental material the Criterion edition includes are various interviews with the cast and crew along with an appearance of the cast on The Ed Sullivan Show performing a deleted scene from the film and the two-and-a-half hour documentary Charles Laughton Directs "The Night of the Hunter".[85]

Related works

In 1974, film archivists Robert Gitt and Anthony Slide retrieved several boxes of photographs, sketches, memos, and letters relating to the film from Laughton's widow Elsa Lanchester for the American Film Institute. Lanchester also gave the Institute over 80,000 feet of rushes and outtakes from the filming.[86] In 1981, this material was sent to the UCLA Film and Television Archive where, for the next 20 years, they were edited into a two-and-half hour documentary that premiered in 2002, at UCLA's Festival of Preservation.[87]

The film was remade in 1991 as a TV movie starring Richard Chamberlain.[88]

In 2020, it was reported that Universal Pictures is working on a remake of the film set in the present day, and being written by Matt Orton.[89]

See also

References

  1. ^ Töteberg, Michael; Lensing (1992). The Anarchy of the Imagination: Interviews, Essays, Notes, Rainer Werner Fassbinder. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. p. 106. ISBN 0801843693.
  2. ^ Goodman, Joan (23 November 1996). . The Daily Telegraph. Archived from the original on February 26, 2016. Retrieved September 8, 2018.
  3. ^ Ventura, Elbert (2010-11-09). "Charles Laughton's The Night of the Hunter, revisited". Slate Magazine. Retrieved 2021-12-27.
  4. ^ "Complete National Film Registry Listing". Library of Congress. Retrieved May 6, 2020.
  5. ^ Marx, Andy; Wharton, Dennis (December 4, 1992). "Diverse pix mix picked". Variety. Retrieved July 28, 2020.
  6. ^ . Cahiers du cinéma. The Moving Arts. Archived from the original on December 18, 2013.
  7. ^ "$10,000 in 1931 → 2021 | Inflation Calculator".
  8. ^ "'The Night of the Hunter': The Extraordinary Single Directorial Entry in Charles Laughton's Career • Cinephilia & Beyond". December 20, 2015.
  9. ^ a b c d e f g h "The Night of the Hunter". AFI Catalog of Feature Films. American Film Institute. Retrieved February 8, 2020.
  10. ^ a b Burgess Meredith is credited as director of the film The Man on the Eiffel Tower[1]. Irving Allen and Laughton also directed but are not credited.
  11. ^ Algar 1995, 2:29.
  12. ^ Clubb & Rosas 2010, 0:46.
  13. ^ Clubb & Rosas 2010, 6:28.
  14. ^ Clubb & Rosas 2010, 8:32.
  15. ^ Clubb & Rosas 2010, 7:37.
  16. ^ Clubb & Rosas 2010, 8:48.
  17. ^ Clubb & Rosas 2010, 11:00.
  18. ^ Clubb & Rosas 2010, 17:45.
  19. ^ a b Clubb & Rosas 2010, 32:40.
  20. ^ Clubb & Rosas 2010, 13:20.
  21. ^ Clubb & Rosas 2010, 4:24.
  22. ^ Algar 1995, 3:15.
  23. ^ Clubb & Rosas 2010, 30:33.
  24. ^ a b Callow 2000, p. 32.
  25. ^ Jones 2002, p. 74.
  26. ^ Clubb & Rosas 2010, 5:29.
  27. ^ Clubb & Rosas 2010, 27:16.
  28. ^ Clubb & Rosas 2010, 28:45.
  29. ^ Clubb & Rosas 2010, 29:44.
  30. ^ Winters, Shelley (1989). Shelley II: The Middle of My Century. New York: Simon and Schuster. pp. 29. ISBN 0671442104. Retrieved May 13, 2020 – via Internet Archive.
  31. ^ a b Oderman, Stuart (2015). Lillian Gish: A Life on Stage and Screen. McFarland. p. 278. ISBN 978-1476613697. Retrieved February 8, 2020 – via GoogleBooks.
  32. ^ Clubb & Rosas 2010, 31:04.
  33. ^ Kashner, Sam; MacNair, Jennifer (2003). The Bad & the Beautiful: Hollywood in the Fifties. W. W. Norton & Company. p. 192. ISBN 0393324362. Retrieved February 8, 2020 – via GoogleBooks.
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  35. ^ Ventura & Gavron 1984, 3:03.
  36. ^ Clubb & Rosas 2010, 13:41.
  37. ^ Couchman 2009, p. 123.
  38. ^ Clubb & Rosas 2010, 14:45.
  39. ^ Clubb & Rosas 2010, 15:20.
  40. ^ Clubb & Rosas 2010, 19:23.
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  42. ^ Clubb & Rosas 2010, 26:31.
  43. ^ Algar 1995, 7:50.
  44. ^ Ventura & Gavron 1984, 2:46.
  45. ^ Algar 1995, 9:35.
  46. ^ Clubb & Rosas 2010, 22:04.
  47. ^ a b c Turner, George E. (December 1982). "Creating The Night of the Hunter". American Cinematographer. Retrieved February 8, 2020.
  48. ^ Clubb & Rosas 2010, 21:42.
  49. ^ Algar 1995, 10:55.
  50. ^ Clubb & Rosas 2010, 20:20.
  51. ^ The Night of the Hunter: Not Noir http://www.filmsnoir.net.
  52. ^ Clubb & Rosas 2010, 22:54.
  53. ^ Clubb & Rosas 2010, 22:54 and 24:38.
  54. ^ Algar 1995, 11:35.
  55. ^ Algar 1995, 12:00.
  56. ^ a b Jones 2002, p. 342.
  57. ^ Jones 2002, p. 252.
  58. ^ Algar 1995, 12:50.
  59. ^ a b Couchman 2009, p. 196.
  60. ^ "The Night of the Hunter". Turner Classic Movies. Retrieved December 23, 2017.
  61. ^ Couchman 2009, p. 198.
  62. ^ Couchman 2009, pp. 196–8.
  63. ^ Clubb & Rosas 2010, 34:30.
  64. ^ Algar 1995, 13:15.
  65. ^ Clubb & Rosas 2010, 35:38.
  66. ^ Crowther, Bosley (September 30, 1955). "Screen: Bogeyman Plus". The New York Times. Retrieved January 30, 2018.
  67. ^ Arneel, Gene (July 20, 1955). "Film Reviews: The Night of the Hunter". Variety. p. 6. Retrieved June 10, 2021 – via Internet Archive.
  68. ^ "'The Night of the Hunter' with Robert Mitchum, Shelley Winters and Lillian Gish". Harrison's Reports. July 23, 1955. p. 120. Retrieved June 10, 2021 – via Internet Archive.
  69. ^ "A Diabolical Preacher Runs Amok". Life. August 1, 1955. p. 49. Retrieved February 8, 2020 – via Google Books.
  70. ^ Clubb & Rosas 2010, 35:55.
  71. ^ Algar 1995, 13:55.
  72. ^ Clubb & Rosas 2010, 37:26.
  73. ^ Clubb & Rosas 2010, 36:13.
  74. ^ Clubb & Rosas 2010, 36:55.
  75. ^ Ebert, Roger (November 24, 1996). . Chicago Sun-Times. Archived from the original on December 7, 2008. Retrieved October 17, 2006.
  76. ^ "Cahiers du cinéma: 100 most beautiful films in the world". 2008-11-04.
  77. ^ "The 500 Greatest Films Of All Time". Empire. June 12, 2017. Retrieved January 28, 2018.
  78. ^ "The 100 Greatest Films of All Time 2012". 2021-06-28.
  79. ^ "The Greatest Films of All Time". 2022-12-01.
  80. ^ Couchman 2009, p. 216.
  81. ^ The Night of the Hunter (1955), retrieved September 20, 2022
  82. ^ Valladares, Carlos (April 23, 2018). "Waking up to the genius of 'The Night of the Hunter,' showing at the Stanford". San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved February 8, 2020.
  83. ^ Whipp, Glenn (January 11, 2011). "The Coen brothers' gritty tale for kids". The Los Angeles Times. Retrieved January 23, 2021.
  84. ^ a b "The Night of the Hunter Home Video Review". Turner Classic Movies. Retrieved December 28, 2017.
  85. ^ "The Night of the Hunter (1955) | The Criterion Collection". The Criterion Collection. Retrieved January 4, 2019.
  86. ^ Satola, Mark. Preview: A Rare Look Behind The Scenes Of The Night Of The Hunter
  87. ^ . Archived from the original on June 22, 2009.
  88. ^ "Night of the Hunter (1991) TV Movie". IMDb. May 19, 2012.
  89. ^ Kroll, Justin (April 7, 2020). "'Night of the Hunter' Remake in the Works at Universal (EXCLUSIVE)". Variety. Retrieved April 7, 2020.

Works cited

  • Algar, Nigel (1995), "Moving Pictures: The Night of the Hunter", The Night of the Hunter (DVD), United States: Criterion Collection, ISBN 9781604653502
  • Callow, Simon (2000). The Night of the Hunter. BFI Film Classics. BFI (British Film Institute). ISBN 978-0-851-70822-5.
  • Clubb, Issa; Rosas, John Paul (2010), "The Making of 'The Night of the Hunter'", The Night of the Hunter (DVD), United States: Criterion Collection, ISBN 9781604653502
  • Couchman, Jeffrey (2009). The Night of the Hunter: A Biography of a Film. Northwestern University Press. ISBN 978-0-810-12542-1.
  • Eagan, Daniel (2010). America's Film Legacy: The Authoritative Guide to the Landmark Movies in the National Film Registry. A&C Black. ISBN 978-0-826-42977-3.
  • Jones, Preston Neal (2002). Heaven and Hell to Play With: The Filming of The Night of the Hunter. New York: Limelight Editions. ISBN 0879109742. Retrieved February 7, 2020 – via GoogleBooks.
  • Ventura, Claude; Gavron, Laurence (1984), "Stanley Cortez A.S.C.", The Night of the Hunter (DVD) (in French), United States: Criterion Collection, ISBN 9781604653502
  • Ziegler, Damien: La Nuit du chasseur, une esthétique cinématographique, Bazaar and co, 2008. 160 pages.

Notes

  1. ^ Approximately $177,801.44 in 2021.[7]

External links

 
Wikiquote has quotations related to The Night of the Hunter (film).
  • The Night of the Hunter essay [2] by Peter Rainer on the National Film Registry website
  • The Night of the Hunter at IMDb
  • The Night of the Hunter at AllMovie
  • The Night of the Hunter at the American Film Institute Catalog
  • The Night of the Hunter at the TCM Movie Database
  • The Night of the Hunter at Rotten Tomatoes
  • The Night of the Hunter (1955) analysis of film by Tim Dirks at Filmsite.org
  • "Text and Texture: A comparative analysis of The Night of the Hunter, Cape Fear (1962) and Cape Fear (1991)" analysis of film by Harvey O'Brien
  • The Night of the Hunter at Film Noir of the Week by Bruce Crowther
  • "Why I love Night Of The Hunter" article by Margaret Atwood: "Why I Love Night Of The Hunter" at The Guardian (UK)
  • "The Hidden Hunter" article by Robert Gitt at The Guardian (UK)
  • essay by Leonard Maltin on Gitt's presentation of extremely rare footage
  • "Charles Laughton Directed A Masterpiece" article by Amber Grey at BellaOnline
  • "The Night of the Hunter: Holy Terror" an essay by Terrence Rafferty at the Criterion Collection
  • The Night of the Hunter essay by Daniel Eagan in America's Film Legacy: The Authoritative Guide to the Landmark Movies in the National Film Registry, A&C Black, 2010 ISBN 0826429777, pages 502-503

January 20, 2023
night, hunter, film, night, hunter, 1955, american, film, noir, thriller, directed, charles, laughton, starring, robert, mitchum, shelley, winters, lillian, gish, screenplay, james, agee, based, 1953, novel, same, title, davis, grubb, plot, focuses, corrupt, f. The Night of the Hunter is a 1955 American film noir thriller directed by Charles Laughton and starring Robert Mitchum Shelley Winters and Lillian Gish The screenplay by James Agee was based on the 1953 novel of the same title by Davis Grubb The plot focuses on a corrupt faux minister serial killer who charms an unsuspecting widow in order to get his hands on 10 000 in stolen bank loot hidden by her executed husband The Night of the HunterTheatrical release poster with Robert Mitchum s character s upper fingers displaying LOVE on the right hand and HATE on the left Directed byCharles LaughtonScreenplay byJames AgeeBased onThe Night of the Hunter1953 novelby Davis GrubbProduced byPaul GregoryStarringRobert MitchumShelley WintersLillian GishBilly ChapinPeter GravesCinematographyStanley CortezEdited byRobert GoldenMusic byWalter SchumannProductioncompanyPaul Gregory ProductionsDistributed byUnited ArtistsRelease dateJuly 26 1955 1955 07 26 Running time92 minutesCountryUnited StatesLanguageEnglishBudget 600 000The novel and film draw on the true story of Harry Powers who was hanged in 1932 for the murder of two widows and three children in Clarksburg West Virginia The film s lyrical and expressionistic style borrowing techniques from silent film sets it apart from other Hollywood films of the 1940s and 1950s and it has influenced such later directors such as Rainer Werner Fassbinder 1 Robert Altman 2 and Martin Scorsese 3 Despite receiving negative reviews upon its original release it has been positively re evaluated in later decades and is now considered one of the greatest films ever made It was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry in 1992 4 5 The influential French film magazine Cahiers du Cinema selected The Night of the Hunter in 2008 as the second best film of all time behind Citizen Kane 6 In spite of the film s later acclaim the negative reaction to its premiere made it Charles Laughton s only feature film as director Contents 1 Plot 2 Cast 3 Production 3 1 Development 3 2 Casting 3 3 Filming 3 4 Score 3 5 Post production 4 Release 5 Reception 5 1 Contemporaneous 5 2 Retrospective 6 Home media 7 Related works 8 See also 9 References 10 Works cited 11 Notes 12 External linksPlot EditIn West Virginia in the Great Depression Reverend Harry Powell is a misogynistic serial killer and self proclaimed preacher traveling along the Ohio River who justifies murdering widows he marries for their money as doing God s work After reaching a small town sometime after his latest murder Powell ends up being arrested for driving a stolen car and serves 30 days at Moundsville Penitentiary There he shares a cell with Ben Harper an impoverished father of two who killed two men in a bank robbery for 10 000 a he stole so that his children wouldn t go hungry With the police about to catch him Harper made his children John and Pearl promise to never reveal where he hid the money Despite Powell s attempts to worm it out of him Harper takes the secret to his grave Following his release Powell makes his way to Harper s tiny hometown where he charms the townsfolk and woos Harper s widow Willa a waitress for Walter Spoon and his wife Icey 8 Overnight Powell manages to win the town s trust and weds Willa only John remains instinctively distrustful Powell suspects that John knows where the money is hidden and in a cornering John accidentally reveals that he indeed does Later as Powell begins to question Pearl John reminds her of the promise whereby he inadvertently gives away that Pearl knows the secret too Willa becomes deluded that Powell married her to redeem her soul and begins preaching alongside him in tent revivals However she later overhears Powell threatening Pearl to reveal the money s whereabouts whereupon she s disabused of her faith in Powell Powell murders Willa the same night dumping her body in the river while spreading the tale that she left her family for a life of sin Powell proceeds to threaten the children before learning the money is hidden inside Pearl s doll While fishing Birdie Steptoe an elderly friend of the family discovers Willa s body but refrains from telling the police in fear that he will be accused of the murder The children escape an enraged Powell and attempt to seek refuge with Birdie who has drunk himself into a stupor They use their father s small johnboat to flee down the river and eventually find sanctuary with Rachel Cooper a tough old woman who looks after stray children Powell tracks them down but Rachel sees through his deceptions and runs him off her property with a shotgun Powell vows to come back after dark and does During the all night standoff Rachel gives Powell a face full of birdshot and he flees into her barn She summons the state police who arrive and arrest Powell for Willa s murder John breaks down during Powell s handcuffing having a flashback of his father s fate He beats the doll against the struggling man in anguish spilling the cash out During Powell s trial John once again transposes Powell for his father and cannot bring himself to testify against him Following Powell s sentencing Rachel takes John and the other children away as a deranged Icey leads a lynch mob toward the police station Powell is escorted out the back to safety just in time but the prison hangman promises to see him again soon John and Pearl then have their first Christmas together with Rachel and their new family Cast EditRobert Mitchum as Reverend Harry Powell Shelley Winters as Willa Harper Lillian Gish as Rachel Cooper Billy Chapin as John Harper Sally Jane Bruce as Pearl Harper James Gleason as Uncle Birdie Steptoe Evelyn Varden as Icey Spoon Willa s employer Don Beddoe as Walt Spoon Icey s husband Peter Graves as Ben Harper Gloria Castillo as Ruby one of Rachel s girls Paul Bryar as Bart the Hangman uncredited 9 Production Edit Director Charles Laughton in 1934 This was the only film directed by the actor Charles Laughton 10 Laughton had directed plays on Broadway most produced by his friend Paul Gregory Development Edit Harold Matson a literary agent sent a copy of the 1953 novel The Night of the Hunter by Davis Grubb to Paul Gregory 11 He sent the book to Laughton who loved it and described it as a nightmarish Mother Goose story 12 Laughton contacted Grubb and the two of them instantly got along very well He traveled to Philadelphia where Grubb lived and they spent five days discussing ideas for the film Grubb had studied art in college so he offered to draw sketches as a form of inspiration Laughton loved the drawings and many of them were used in the film s storyboard 13 At first Grubb was being considered to write the screenplay himself but the studio wanted to hire someone with experience writing for films 14 James Agee was hired as the screenwriter because he was from the South and had experience writing about the Depression 15 Agee began writing in April 1954 and finished in June but his script was 293 pages much too long for a feature film Laughton made significant rewrites to the script and his was the version used for shooting even though he insisted that Agee be credited as the only writer 16 9 Agee s original script ended with a shot of children s faces floating among the stars an idea that was eventually moved to the opening of the film 17 Throughout 1954 Gregory worked with the Production Code Administration to change the script to meet the guidelines of the Production Code There was much concern about depicting a preacher on screen as an evil person and Gregory made an effort to make the character of the Reverend not appear to be a real ordained minister Eventually the script was approved but Protestant groups who had read the script continued to object to the film s production 9 While preparing for the filming Laughton studied silent films by viewing their original nitrate prints including The Birth of a Nation Intolerance and The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse He wanted to restore the power of silent films to talkies 18 The budget of the film was a little under 600 000 19 of which about 75 000 was for the rights to adapt the novel 20 Casting Edit Robert Mitchum playing Reverend Harry Powell and Shelley Winters as Willa Harper Laughton s initial thought after reading the novel was to cast himself in the role of the preacher but Gregory convinced him that no studio would finance a film unless they cast someone else 21 22 For the most part he did not hold traditional auditions for the actors he simply met with them to get a sense of their personalities and whether they were right for the role 23 Laughton considered casting Gary Cooper as Harry Powell but Cooper did not accept the role as he thought it might be detrimental to his career 24 John Carradine expressed interest in the role of the reverend 25 as did Laurence Olivier but his schedule was not free for two years 26 Robert Mitchum was eager for the part of the preacher When he auditioned a moment that particularly impressed Charles Laughton was when Laughton described the character as a diabolical shit and Mitchum promptly answered Present 24 Laughton liked Mitchum for the role partly due to his sexual persona but Grubb was concerned about the character of the preacher being considered sexual Laughton told him If you want to sell God you have to be sexy 27 Agnes Moorehead Grace Kelly and Betty Grable were all considered for the role of Willa Harper 28 In the end Laughton chose Shelley Winters because he felt she had a vulnerable quality and was more of a serious actor than a movie star she committed to the role only two weeks before filming began 29 In her 1989 memoir Winters described this as probably the most thoughtful and reserved performance I ever gave 30 Laughton s first pick for the role of Rachel Cooper was his wife Elsa Lanchester 31 Jane Darwell and Louise Fazenda also were considered 32 Lanchester for reasons unknown to Laughton turned down the role suggesting silent movie star Lillian Gish for the role 31 A doubtful Laughton went to New York for the purpose of watching films in which Gish starred These included the shorts and feature films she made with pioneer D W Griffith Gish had gotten word of his watching these old movies and when she asked him why he replied When I first went to the movies they sat in their seats straight and leaned forward Now they slump down with their heads back and eat candy and popcorn I want them to sit up straight again 33 Filming Edit A lighting arrangement in The Night of the Hunter Note the placement of the key light off the subject Lillian Gish to create a silhouette while illuminating Robert Mitchum in the background This plays off the conventional association of light with good and darkness with evil Principal photography of The Night of the Hunter began on August 15 and ended on October 7 1954 a total of 36 days of shooting 34 35 Laughton kept the editor and musical composer on set during filming which was very uncommon at the time 36 Mitchum originally suggested Laughton to shoot the film in authentic Appalachian locations but the director could not afford the budget to do on location shooting citation needed Besides he wanted to create the film s unique look on Hollywood sound stages and found what he was looking for at Pathe Republic Studios and the Rowland V Lee ranch in the San Fernando Valley 37 Certain cutaway shots and compositing shots were shot in West Virginia 38 Laughton hired Terry Sanders as second unit director in order to scout and shoot the river scenes because he had recently directed an Academy Award winning short film A Time Out of War which mostly took place on a river 39 Rather than shooting with traditional takes Laughton had the crew only slate at the beginning of each reel of film and let the camera roll continuously until the reel ran out This was so that he could direct the actors without waiting to reset the camera and sound equipment not unlike the way silent films used to be directed 40 Shelley Winters told Laughton she had this image of Willa as being a fly fascinated by a spider and she very willingly walks into this web He liked this image and told her to channel that into the performance 41 Mitchum s performance in the film has been described as Brechtian acting which Laughton had extensive experience with 42 According to Lillian Gish Laughton was very unsure of himself on set as this was his first time directing a film and when someone would give him a suggestion he would start talking about fears that his whole vision was wrong 43 Laughton s directing style was supportive and respectful of the actors input and several of the actors have said it was among their favorite professional experiences citation needed The director of photography was Stanley Cortez who also shot Orson Welles 1942 film The Magnificent Ambersons Because Laughton had very little experience working with film Cortez would visit his house to explain various concepts of camera lenses camera heights and what effect each of them gave 44 Laughton told Cortez that the nitrate prints of the silent movies that he had been watching for research impressed them with how sharp they looked so he asked Cortez to create that same sharpness for The Night of the Hunter 45 The studio brought most of the crew from a recent film Black Tuesday because they had worked so well together and Cortez had experimented with a new black and white film Kodak Tri X on that production with great results He chose to shoot certain scenes of this film on Tri X because it had a sharp contrast that would help fulfill Laughton s vision 46 47 The studio however tried to convince them to shoot on color film instead because they thought it would sell more tickets Gregory fought to keep it black and white I could not see this film being in color 48 The style of the cinematography was split up between the two units the first unit of the crew shot the scenes in and around the Harpers home which were very dark whereas the second unit shot the scenes traveling along the river which were designed to look more like images from the children s perspective One scene in particular that Cortez has spoken about is in the bedroom after Willa has overheard Powell threatening the children He lit this scene with a halo of light surrounding Willa s head on the pillow foreshadowing that her death is imminent 49 Cortez also brought back the Iris shot in one scene as an homage to silent films 50 Laughton drew on the harsh angular look of German expressionist films of the 1920s which is especially noticeable in the art direction by Hilyard Brown 51 52 He had the idea that children notice only certain details of their surroundings that they are focused on which is why some set pieces are somewhat abstract and minimal neon lights that are not attached to a particular store white picket fences that are not surrounding any house the barn along the river that looks like a painting and the chapel like parents bedroom 53 The river scenes with the children were all shot on a sound stage 54 The shot of John looking out of the barn window and seeing Powell s silhouette on the horizon was created using a little person and a miniature horse 55 The underwater scene showing Willa s dead body was shot in a studio using a mannequin with a custom mask to make it look like Winters 9 Score Edit The film s score composed and arranged by Walter Schumann in close association with Laughton features a combination of nostalgic and expressionistic orchestral passages The film has two original songs by Schumann Lullaby sung by Kitty White whom Schumann discovered in a nightclub 56 and Pretty Fly originally sung by Sally Jane Bruce as Pearl but later dubbed by an actress named Betty Benson 57 A recurring musical device involves the preacher making his presence known by singing the traditional hymn Leaning on the Everlasting Arms 47 RCA Victor was impressed by the score so in 1955 they released a soundtrack with Schumann s score and Laughton narrating an abridged version of the story also written by Grubb 56 47 Post production Edit The film s editor Robert Golden has said that after he screened the complete film to one of the United Artists studio executives for the first time the executive told Golden It s too arty 58 Release Edit An image from the original trailer for The Night of the Hunter The Night of the Hunter premiered on July 26 1955 in Des Moines Iowa a special event to raise money for the YMCA in Gregory s hometown which included a parade and a broadcast on The Tonight Show 59 9 It later had its premiere in Los Angeles on August 26 1955 60 and in New York on September 29 1955 59 To promote the film the Los Angeles Herald Express serialized the film s script throughout April 1955 61 The film also received an extensive promotional campaign from United Artists 62 but they weren t sure about the best way to promote it because it didn t fall into any typical film genres and the promotional material didn t give a good sense of what the film was about 63 However one of the film s advertisements won an award for being in the top 50 best advertisements of 1954 from the American Institute of Graphic Arts 9 According to Paul Gregory absolutely no money was spent on promotion United Artists didn t have the muscle desire or intelligence to handle the picture 64 He originally had the idea to tour the film road show style stopping at certain cities that were familiar with Laughton s plays but he could not convince the studio 19 The Roman Catholic Diocese of Cheyenne denied the film s release and Gregory wanted to put together a lawsuit against them but the studio would not allow him to 65 Reception EditContemporaneous Edit The Night of the Hunter was a total flop with both audiences and critics at its initial release and Laughton never directed another film 10 Bosley Crowther of The New York Times called the film a weird and intriguing endeavor adding unfortunately the story and the thesis presented by Mr Grubb had to be carried through by Mr Laughton to a finish and it is here that he goes wrong For the evolution of the melodrama after the threatened frightened children flee home angles off into that allegorical contrast of the forces of Evil and Good 66 Gene Arneel of Variety summarized The relentless terror of Davis Grubb s novel got away from Paul Gregory and Charles Laughton in their translation of Night of the Hunter This start for Gregory as producer and Laughton as director is rich in promise but the completed product bewitching at times loses sustained drive via too many offbeat touches that have a misty effect 67 Harrison s Reports wrote The picture might have some appeal for those who patronize art houses in search of the unusual in movie fare but the great majority of those who see it will look upon it as a choppily edited foggy melodrama peopled with foggy characters 68 Life summed up the film If sometimes it strains too hard at being simple and winds up being pretentious it still is one of the year s most interesting and provocative films 69 The Legion of Decency gave the film a B because it degraded marriage and the Protestant Motion Picture Council rated it objectionable saying that any religious person would be offended by it The film was also banned in Memphis Tennessee by the city s head of censorship Lloyd Binford 70 9 Great Britain rated the film adults only 9 The film was shot in black and white in the styles and motifs of German Expressionism bizarre shadows stylized dialogue distorted perspectives surrealistic sets odd camera angles to create a simplified and disturbing mood that reflects the sinister character of Powell the nightmarish fears of the children and the sweetness of their savior Rachel Due to the film s visual style and themes it is also often categorized as a film noir Laughton took this commercial failure of his first film personally and never attempted to make another film 71 Retrospective Edit At the time of its release The Night of the Hunter received mixed reviews but over the years it has been reassessed and is now an undisputed classic 72 It began as a cult film with a small group of fans and regularly played at museums and in revival houses Its popularity grew as a new generation of children were exposed to the film when it played on television 73 In the 1970s as the field of film criticism began to expand many articles were written about the film 74 Roger Ebert wrote It is one of the most frightening of movies with one of the most unforgettable of villains and on both of those scores it holds up well after four decades 75 The Night of the Hunter was rated No 90 on Bravo s 100 Scariest Movie Moments In a 2007 listing of the 100 Most Beautiful Films Cahiers du cinema ranked The Night of the Hunter No 2 76 It is among the top ten in the BFI list of the 50 films you should see by the age of 14 In 2008 it was ranked as the 71st greatest movie of all time by Empire magazine in its issue of The 500 Greatest Movies of All Time 77 In 2012 Sight and Sound magazine s decennial Greatest Films of All Time poll ranked it as the 63rd greatest film ever made in 2022 the same poll put it at No 25 78 79 In 1992 the United States Library of Congress deemed The Night of the Hunter to be culturally historically or aesthetically significant and selected the film for preservation in its National Film Registry 80 On Rotten Tomatoes the film holds an approval rating of 93 based on 80 reviews with a weighted average rating of 9 10 10 The site s critical consensus reads Featuring Robert Mitchum s formidable performance as a child hunting preacher The Night of the Hunter is a disturbing look at good and evil 81 American Film Institute recognition AFI s 100 Years 100 Thrills No 34 AFI s 100 Years 100 Heroes amp Villains Reverend Harry Powell Villain No 29Mark Callaghan the lead singer for the Australian band The Riptides parodied Mitchum s character in the music video for the 1982 track Hearts And Flowers Reverend Harry Powell s speech about love and hate has become a memorable moment in film history In the 1989 Spike Lee film Do the Right Thing the character Radio Raheem wears brass knuckles saying love and hate on each hand and gives a speech that is an almost verbatim copy of Powell s 82 The Coen brothers have referenced The Night of the Hunter in several of their own films including The Big Lebowski the line the Dude abides which is an echo of Rachel s closing line They abide and they endure and True Grit the visual style of Rooster s night ride with Mattie which is similar to that of John and Pearl s river journey and the use of the music from Leaning on the Everlasting Arms 83 In the episode Fall of the television series Better Call Saul The Night of the Hunter is shown playing in a retirement home as series protagonist Jimmy McGill attempts to deceive a number of his clients Reverend Powell s hand gestures during his right hand left hand speech are juxtaposed with similar gestures made by Jimmy highlighting his charismatic but duplicitous nature In Emerald Fennell s 2020 film Promising Young Woman a clip from The Night of the Hunter is playing in a scene where the protagonist s parents are watching TV on the couch In a later scene the song The Pretty Fly from the soundtrack to The Night of the Hunter plays after the protagonist makes a disturbing discovery Home media EditThe Night of the Hunter was released on DVD by MGM Home Entertainment in 2000 84 On November 16 2010 the film was released on Blu ray and DVD by The Criterion Collection in association with the University of California Los Angeles film archive 84 Among other supplemental material the Criterion edition includes are various interviews with the cast and crew along with an appearance of the cast on The Ed Sullivan Show performing a deleted scene from the film and the two and a half hour documentary Charles Laughton Directs The Night of the Hunter 85 Related works EditIn 1974 film archivists Robert Gitt and Anthony Slide retrieved several boxes of photographs sketches memos and letters relating to the film from Laughton s widow Elsa Lanchester for the American Film Institute Lanchester also gave the Institute over 80 000 feet of rushes and outtakes from the filming 86 In 1981 this material was sent to the UCLA Film and Television Archive where for the next 20 years they were edited into a two and half hour documentary that premiered in 2002 at UCLA s Festival of Preservation 87 The film was remade in 1991 as a TV movie starring Richard Chamberlain 88 In 2020 it was reported that Universal Pictures is working on a remake of the film set in the present day and being written by Matt Orton 89 See also EditLillian Gish filmography List of American films of 1955 Lonely hearts killerReferences Edit Toteberg Michael Lensing 1992 The Anarchy of the Imagination Interviews Essays Notes Rainer Werner Fassbinder Baltimore Johns Hopkins University Press p 106 ISBN 0801843693 Goodman Joan 23 November 1996 Directing dangerously The Daily Telegraph Archived from the original on February 26 2016 Retrieved September 8 2018 Ventura Elbert 2010 11 09 Charles Laughton s The Night of the Hunter revisited Slate Magazine Retrieved 2021 12 27 Complete National Film Registry Listing Library of Congress Retrieved May 6 2020 Marx Andy Wharton Dennis December 4 1992 Diverse pix mix picked Variety Retrieved July 28 2020 Cahiers du Cinema 100 Films Cahiers du cinema The Moving Arts Archived from the original on December 18 2013 10 000 in 1931 2021 Inflation Calculator The Night of the Hunter The Extraordinary Single Directorial Entry in Charles Laughton s Career Cinephilia amp Beyond December 20 2015 a b c d e f g h The Night of the Hunter AFI Catalog of Feature Films American Film Institute Retrieved February 8 2020 a b Burgess Meredith is credited as director of the film The Man on the Eiffel Tower 1 Irving Allen and Laughton also directed but are not credited Algar 1995 2 29 Clubb amp Rosas 2010 0 46 Clubb amp Rosas 2010 6 28 Clubb amp Rosas 2010 8 32 Clubb amp Rosas 2010 7 37 Clubb amp Rosas 2010 8 48 Clubb amp Rosas 2010 11 00 Clubb amp Rosas 2010 17 45 a b Clubb amp Rosas 2010 32 40 Clubb amp Rosas 2010 13 20 Clubb amp Rosas 2010 4 24 Algar 1995 3 15 Clubb amp Rosas 2010 30 33 a b Callow 2000 p 32 Jones 2002 p 74 Clubb amp Rosas 2010 5 29 Clubb amp Rosas 2010 27 16 Clubb amp Rosas 2010 28 45 Clubb amp Rosas 2010 29 44 Winters Shelley 1989 Shelley II The Middle of My Century New York Simon and Schuster pp 29 ISBN 0671442104 Retrieved May 13 2020 via Internet Archive a b Oderman Stuart 2015 Lillian Gish A Life on Stage and Screen McFarland p 278 ISBN 978 1476613697 Retrieved February 8 2020 via GoogleBooks Clubb amp Rosas 2010 31 04 Kashner Sam MacNair Jennifer 2003 The Bad amp the Beautiful Hollywood in the Fifties W W Norton amp Company p 192 ISBN 0393324362 Retrieved February 8 2020 via GoogleBooks Eagan 2010 p 502 Ventura amp Gavron 1984 3 03 Clubb amp Rosas 2010 13 41 Couchman 2009 p 123 Clubb amp Rosas 2010 14 45 Clubb amp Rosas 2010 15 20 Clubb amp Rosas 2010 19 23 Algar 1995 6 45 Clubb amp Rosas 2010 26 31 Algar 1995 7 50 Ventura amp Gavron 1984 2 46 Algar 1995 9 35 Clubb amp Rosas 2010 22 04 a b c Turner George E December 1982 Creating The Night of the Hunter American Cinematographer Retrieved February 8 2020 Clubb amp Rosas 2010 21 42 Algar 1995 10 55 Clubb amp Rosas 2010 20 20 The Night of the Hunter Not Noir http www filmsnoir net Clubb amp Rosas 2010 22 54 Clubb amp Rosas 2010 22 54 and 24 38 Algar 1995 11 35 Algar 1995 12 00 a b Jones 2002 p 342 Jones 2002 p 252 Algar 1995 12 50 a b Couchman 2009 p 196 The Night of the Hunter Turner Classic Movies Retrieved December 23 2017 Couchman 2009 p 198 Couchman 2009 pp 196 8 Clubb amp Rosas 2010 34 30 Algar 1995 13 15 Clubb amp Rosas 2010 35 38 Crowther Bosley September 30 1955 Screen Bogeyman Plus The New York Times Retrieved January 30 2018 Arneel Gene July 20 1955 Film Reviews The Night of the Hunter Variety p 6 Retrieved June 10 2021 via Internet Archive The Night of the Hunter with Robert Mitchum Shelley Winters and Lillian Gish Harrison s Reports July 23 1955 p 120 Retrieved June 10 2021 via Internet Archive A Diabolical Preacher Runs Amok Life August 1 1955 p 49 Retrieved February 8 2020 via Google Books Clubb amp Rosas 2010 35 55 Algar 1995 13 55 Clubb amp Rosas 2010 37 26 Clubb amp Rosas 2010 36 13 Clubb amp Rosas 2010 36 55 Ebert Roger November 24 1996 The Night of the Hunter 1955 Chicago Sun Times Archived from the original on December 7 2008 Retrieved October 17 2006 Cahiers du cinema 100 most beautiful films in the world 2008 11 04 The 500 Greatest Films Of All Time Empire June 12 2017 Retrieved January 28 2018 The 100 Greatest Films of All Time 2012 2021 06 28 The Greatest Films of All Time 2022 12 01 Couchman 2009 p 216 The Night of the Hunter 1955 retrieved September 20 2022 Valladares Carlos April 23 2018 Waking up to the genius of The Night of the Hunter showing at the Stanford San Francisco Chronicle Retrieved February 8 2020 Whipp Glenn January 11 2011 The Coen brothers gritty tale for kids The Los Angeles Times Retrieved January 23 2021 a b The Night of the Hunter Home Video Review Turner Classic Movies Retrieved December 28 2017 The Night of the Hunter 1955 The Criterion Collection The Criterion Collection Retrieved January 4 2019 Satola Mark Preview A Rare Look Behind The Scenes Of The Night Of The Hunter Treasures from the UCLA Film and Television Archive Archived from the original on June 22 2009 Night of the Hunter 1991 TV Movie IMDb May 19 2012 Kroll Justin April 7 2020 Night of the Hunter Remake in the Works at Universal EXCLUSIVE Variety Retrieved April 7 2020 Works cited EditAlgar Nigel 1995 Moving Pictures The Night of the Hunter The Night of the Hunter DVD United States Criterion Collection ISBN 9781604653502 Callow Simon 2000 The Night of the Hunter BFI Film Classics BFI British Film Institute ISBN 978 0 851 70822 5 Clubb Issa Rosas John Paul 2010 The Making of The Night of the Hunter The Night of the Hunter DVD United States Criterion Collection ISBN 9781604653502 Couchman Jeffrey 2009 The Night of the Hunter A Biography of a Film Northwestern University Press ISBN 978 0 810 12542 1 Eagan Daniel 2010 America s Film Legacy The Authoritative Guide to the Landmark Movies in the National Film Registry A amp C Black ISBN 978 0 826 42977 3 Jones Preston Neal 2002 Heaven and Hell to Play With The Filming of The Night of the Hunter New York Limelight Editions ISBN 0879109742 Retrieved February 7 2020 via GoogleBooks Ventura Claude Gavron Laurence 1984 Stanley Cortez A S C The Night of the Hunter DVD in French United States Criterion Collection ISBN 9781604653502 Ziegler Damien La Nuit du chasseur une esthetique cinematographique Bazaar and co 2008 160 pages Notes Edit Approximately 177 801 44 in 2021 7 External links Edit Wikiquote has quotations related to The Night of the Hunter film The Night of the Hunter essay 2 by Peter Rainer on the National Film Registry website The Night of the Hunter at IMDb The Night of the Hunter at AllMovie The Night of the Hunter at the American Film Institute Catalog The Night of the Hunter at the TCM Movie Database The Night of the Hunter at Rotten Tomatoes The Night of the Hunter 1955 analysis of film by Tim Dirks at Filmsite org Text and Texture A comparative analysis of The Night of the Hunter Cape Fear 1962 and Cape Fear 1991 analysis of film by Harvey O Brien The Night of the Hunter at Film Noir of the Week by Bruce Crowther Why I love Night Of The Hunter article by Margaret Atwood Why I Love Night Of The Hunter at The Guardian UK The Hidden Hunter article by Robert Gitt at The Guardian UK DVD review Discovery The Night of the Hunter 2002 essay by Leonard Maltin on Gitt s presentation of extremely rare footage Charles Laughton Directed A Masterpiece article by Amber Grey at BellaOnline The Night of the Hunter Holy Terror an essay by Terrence Rafferty at the Criterion Collection The Night of the Hunter essay by Daniel Eagan in America s Film Legacy The Authoritative Guide to the Landmark Movies in the National Film Registry A amp C Black 2010 ISBN 0826429777 pages 502 503 Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title The Night of the Hunter film amp oldid 1134449277 Related works, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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