#still really not happy that James Horner died before I got into the soundtrack

[4sensesplusascarf]

the only people who really, truly understand "Balto" (1995) are me, my first college roommate, and composer James Horner who wrote the soundtrack for it. I know this because I listened to the soundtrack on repeat while driving a few days through the desert once and also I just inherently have more knowledge about this subject than anyone else

[therealkn]

David’s Resolution: Day -2

Day -2 (December 30, 2018)

The Night of the Hunter (1955)

“And then the good Lord went on to say, ‘Beware of false prophets which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly, they are ravening wolves. Ye shall know them by their fruits. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit. Neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. Wherefore by their fruits, ye shall know them.’”

There have been plenty of actors who’ve tried their hand at directing films, with varying degrees of success. A big example is Ron Howard, who started out acting in The Andy Griffith Show and Happy Days, then went on to become an accomplished filmmaker with a lot of good films like Apollo 13 and A Beautiful Mind. Clint Eastwood’s had a pretty solid career as a director, with films like Unforgiven and Million Dollar Baby. Same with Rob Reiner, who went from being known as Michael “Meathead” Stivic on All in the Family to being known as the director of This is Spinal Tap, The Princess Bride and Misery (and also North, much as we’d like to forget that film exists).

Mel Gibson took on directing Braveheart himself, and that film was also a big success commercially and critically (also has a great soundtrack by James Horner); same thing with Tom Hanks and That Thing You Do!. But not every actor who goes into directing met big success, at least initially, and one such example is Charles Laughton.

Charles Laughton was a great actor whose more memorable roles include William Porterhouse in 1932′s The Old Dark House, Dr. Moreau in 1932′s Island of Lost Souls (a really good old horror movie where he is the best thing in it), and Quasimodo in the 1939 adaptation of The Hunchback of Notre Dame, which portrayed Claude Frollo as a judge over 50 years before Disney’s animated adaptation of the story. He was a fantastic actor who sadly directed only one film, but at least the film he made is fucking incredible and one of the best thrillers of all time.

The Night of the Hunter is the story of one Rev. Harry Powell, played by Robert Mitchum. Powell is a traveling preacher who also happens to be a serial killer operating in the same vein as Bluebeard: he finds wealthy widows, marries them, kills them, takes their money, rinse, repeat. And his latest target is Willa Harper (played by Shelley Winters), a widow living in Depression-era rural West Virginia. Willa’s husband Ben (played by Peter Graves) was arrested, sent to prison, and executed for bank robbery and killing two men during the robbery, but it just so happens that Ben’s cellmate was Rev. Powell himself, who was serving time for car theft. And Powell learns that Ben, before his arrest, gave the money to his two children - his son John and his daughter Pearl - for them to hide, meaning that not only is Powell going to go after Willa, he’s going to go after her kids.

So after Powell is released from prison, he goes to Willa’s town and begins charming his way into the town and endearing himself to the townsfolk, which does two things. One is to show Robert Mitchum’s talents as an actor: he is legitimately charming and charismatic as he tells the now-famous story of why the words “hate” and “love” are tattooed on his knuckles, and he quickly endears himself to the town and to Willa and Pearl, even to the viewer in some degree. And that’s where the other thing comes in, and that is that it shows how goddamn terrifying Robert Mitchum can be.

I ended the It Happened One Night review saying “Robert Mitchum is a scary motherfucker”, and this movie shows why. There’s a reason the American Film Institute put Powell on their list of the 50 greatest movie villains of all time. The way Mitchum plays Powell is captivating not only in how charismatic he is, but also in how sinister he is. At all times, even when he’s singing hymns with the townsfolk at an outdoor picnic, there is always this sense that something doesn’t feel right. Even when he is played a little more for comedy, like when he’s peeking upside-down at Ben in prison like he’s Kilroy, or when he’s hollering like Daffy Duck after getting shot in the arm (we’ll get to that later), there’s still this feeling of unease around him. If anything, the fact he can be more comedic makes him scarier because it makes him feel more like an actual person. It makes him more grounded and fleshed out and all the more disturbing.

Powell soon marries Willa and kills her, but not before convincing her that she has been a wicked woman - their honeymoon is him making her feel ashamed for wanting sex in a marriage, and she soon adapts herself to her beliefs. This leads to what I feel is the most disturbing and terrifying scene in the movie, where Willa is preaching to the townsfolk about her “formerly wicked” ways, surrounded by torches as she preaches her rhetoric. It’s legitimately terrifying to see her indoctrinated into these beliefs and speaking these words in this way.

Willa dies at Powell’s hands, and it eventually leads to John and Pearl striking out on their own, travelling downriver to avoid the pursuing Powell. This eventually brings them to Rachel Cooper, an old woman played by Lillian Gish who takes care of stray children, and who takes them in to live with her. Rachel is established as a badass old lady who does have a very kind and understanding side. The film reaches its peak when Powell tracks the children to Rachel, who doesn’t buy his sob story about Willa’s death for one moment and, when Powell goes after John, immediately goes for her shotgun to force Powell off, leading into a tense nighttime standoff between the reverend and Rachel. And how it ends... yeah, not spoiling this one. You’ll have to see it for yourself.

Put simply, it’s really depressing that Laughton didn’t direct another film. This is one of those movies that took some time to be seen as a classic. When it first came out, it did not do very well with critics or audiences, and it really got to Laughton to where he didn’t direct another film. It sucks because I’d have loved to have seen him direct more films, because if The Night of the Hunter is anything to go by, he’d have given us more great classics like it. This makes me wonder if after his death, he saw the film’s reception even today and how so many see it as a classic.

All the acting in the film is great, from Mitchum and Gish and Winters to the child actors, even to the Spoons, an old couple who are friends with the Harper family and whom the wife Icey (yes, her name is Icey Spoon) I absolutely fucking hate as a character. That’s not a bad thing, I think she was designed to be a character you hate, and if that is the case then it’s done very well. The music by Walter Schumann is excellent at conveying mood, especially when things get dark. But then you get to the cinematography and the lighting, and that’s the really good shit.

That screenshot I used for the film is the perfect example of that. The use of lighting in this film is god-tier and there are few films before or since that have used light like The Night of the Hunter. The symbolism behind it is very simple - light and dark, good and evil - but it’s absolutely striking. There are shots that are beautiful to look at and haunting at the same time: the ethereal depiction of Willa’s body in her car at the bottom of the river, the whole thing framed like a painting; the shot of John and Pearl sleeping in a barn when John sees Powell on horseback in the distance, searching for the kids; and the scenes with John and Pearl floating downriver, with the night sky above and the animals watching on the ground. There’s some really beautiful imagery in the film and it’s worth watching just for that.

I highly recommend this movie. Just the cinematography and lightning’s enough to make you want to see this movie for how great it looks, but it’s also a top-notch thriller with one of cinema’s greatest and most terrifying villains. Also, this is the first movie that I’d recommend you watch in the dark, preferably in the evening or in the early morning before the sun rises.

Next time: a Joan of Arc film, but not the kind you’re thinking of.