#film filmnoir classicfilm filmrevue

[julesdelorme]

NIGHT OF THE HUNTER

Someone I have a deep respect for recently talked about this movie, and, since I’ve been on a Film Noir kick lately, I figured I’d use the opportunity to revisit this one. Charles Laughton’s film is not perfect. I suspect that it might even have taken away from the beauty of the movie if it was perfect. Like all Noir it leans toward melodrama, and like all Noir the acting can often seem overdone. But the cinematography in this film more than makes up for any flaws that might exist. In that sense it is perfect Film Noir. There is a dreamlike quality that seems to echo early German Expressionist film, in which the world that you’re looking at doesn’t quite seem real and you’re left you with the feeling that you’re in a kind of beautiful nightmare. There are images of children floating down the river on a skiff that has elements of Huckleberry Finn, yet with a more ghostlike surreal quality. We see Robert Mitchum’s villainous preacher cast in impossible shadow as he rides a stolen horse and sings the same old hymn over and over again. That same hymn and that same impossible shadow laid over top of a clear image is used later on when Mitchum sits singing in the front yard of house while the protective old woman with a shotgun in her lap, played by Lillian Gish, rocks back and forth and sings along with the man she is in silent battle with. Images like these, or like that of Shelly Winters’ body, with flowing hair in perfect sync with the surrounding seaweed, seen almost angel like at the bottom of the river are what make this movie a masterpiece. Yes, as I said, there are flaws. There are places where the film seems a little silly. But the overall effect is hauntingly beautiful and Night of the Hunter is a darkly wondrous painting that, if you haven’t seen, you absolutely should see. You won’t forget Night of the Hunter. You can’t forget Night of the Hunter. That may not be the only thing to mark a great film. But it definitely should be one of them. And I think that makes Night of the Hunter more than worthy of the title of Film Noir Masterpiece.