April 17: Night of the Hunter (1955 -- Charles Laughton)

★★★★★

Night of the Hunter is one of the most original, successful films I’ve seen in a long time. Where have I been all this time not to even know what’s up with it?

There are many things I like about this movie, but I’d have to say that its mood and psyche of German Expressionism appeals to me the most among them.  The BD notes say the film has a strong German Expressionist element, so I expected some low-angle lighting with big shadows.  And there are low angle lights like when Mitchum goes down the stairs to the cellar, the shadows making him even stranger and more deformed than his psychology already is.  There is a great scene that’s only done in silhouette, too.    However, Night of the Hunter uses a fuller range of expressionist vocabulary.  There are some sets that are over-the-top angled to look like a Caligari exterior, and there’s a weird psychology to the whole film that is elemental, as though all the characters had been dragged up from someone’s id.  Also, you see Expressionist body language, like when Mitchum twists his body to pick up the line of an interior and his twisted posture recalls a gesture in Murnau or the like.  There’s even an Expressionist plot line as the Reverend is caught and the angry townsfolk form a lynch mob to hang him.  At that point, Ben has a flashback to the persecution of his father and suddenly becomes a supporter of the man who would have killed him (and still would). In that scene, the angry mob is clearly out to kill a Frankenstein/Golem character like in a Wegener movie.  The stroke of inspiration here is that Charles Laughton has so fully adapted this anachronistic, foreign film vocabulary to a riverside America in the 30s; it’s a simply perfect fit.

And then there is the disturbing, dreamy quality of so many parts of the film.  The film opens with the head of Lillian Gish at the center of a circle of singing cherubs against the night sky; an image that’s both sweet but vaguely disturbing.  You get the same feeling in the river voyage of the children as they drift by a heavily foregrounded frog and some rabbits, animals that are just there, neither threatening nor helpful but neutrally watching the desperate children alone on the river.  And there’s the beautiful, lyrical disturbing scene of Willa, drowned in car at the bottom of the river with her hair flowing with the river plants.  Dreamy….and creepy.

And what great casting.  The hunky Robert Mitchum would seem to be the opposite of what you’d want in the role as the Reverend, but his good looks, deep voice and out-of-control public image are just perfect. His chemistry with the kids is apparent on screen, too.   And what better saving angel than Lillian Gish, not only Griffith’s regular icon-of-innocence but also identified so strongly with silent film.  Shelley Winters isn’t outstanding here, but she’s not bad, and I think this is one of the earliest roles I’ve seen her in.

Night of the Hunter is so over-the-top and out-of-the-box-- but  so well-done – that I’m planning to push it on everyone I can convince to give it a try.  There’s not a moment in the film to not be looking at the screen.