For various reasons, some directors could only make one movie, many of which have a special flavour. Let's think about « Honeymoon Killers » by Leonard Kastle or « Electra Glide in Blue » by James William Guercio.
Among these ones, « The Night of the Hunter » shines with a unique light.
Charles Laughton, a genius of an actor, from "Mutiny on the Bounty" to "Quasimodo", from "Hobson's Choice" to "Spartacus", directed this jewel.
A starry night, children's faces, an old lady telling a bedtime story blended with words from the bible. The tone is given. It is about lambs, wolves and prophets. If you like realism, just walk away. It is a fairy tale which is being told us.
As to the old lady, she is played by Lilian Gish, a great star of silent movies. Cinema of childhood, childhood of cinema. Everything falls into place at once. A classic thanks to its immediate modernity.
Second scene : the camera starts from the sky and zooms down on children playing hide and seek. One of them discovers a woman's corpse in the cellar. The discovery of crime/evil by children/innocence. A topography is given : throughout the movie, going down will be dangerous.
Third scene : bird's eye view again ! Zoom down on a car, driven by Robert Mitchum/Harry Powell, a preacher addressing god, a widow-killer. With Peter Lorre in « M » by Fritz Lang, one of the first serial-killers in cinema.
These three first scenes are like a program, a teaser for the story which can now begin. Once again, a high-angle shot and a zoom down on children. John and Pearl are playing. Their father, chased down by a police car, has just robbed a bank. He gives them the money and makes them swear they won't tell where it is. The scene is set in a small Ohio town during the Great Depression. The father is sentenced to death and emprisoned in the same cell as Harry Powell, who immediatly understands that there's a possible loot to be grabbed, and a widow to be killed.
The film is then a carnival of visions and shadows, of cathedral-like bedrooms, of crypt-like cellars, of rabbits watched by owls and foxes, of a starry river just out of a 1001 nights story, and of the same song sung by the prey and the predator.
Where is darkness, where is light ?
Charles Laughton knows the bible by heart . Stanley Cortez his director of photography knows expressionism by the book. The result is a masterpiece. A fantasmagoric puzzle wher every piece falls into place like a true wonder. John, as a naive prophet, knows and reveals. Pearl is a pure and precious thing, hidden of course. Mitchum is the wolf, the false prophet with a fake power/Powell. Icey Spoon sells ice-cream and « swallows » every lie. Miss Cooper/coop as a mother-hen welcoming children. John and Pearl's escape on the river reminds us of Mark Twain (litterature of childhood/childhood of American litterature) .
There is no specific age to read or watch good stories. Nevertheless, those who have seen « the Night of the Hunter » as children will never forget it.
« Childreeen !!! »
