by Julian Spivey

Based on a novel by Davis Grubb, The Night of the Hunter was actor Charles Laughton’s first and only directorial role. The Night of the Hunter is the ultimate tale of “good vs. evil.” It stars Robert Mitchum, in arguably his finest movie role, as Harry Powell, a terrifying serial killer/preacher, who is after $10,000 that is stolen and hidden by Ben Harper (played by Peter Graves) in the opening of the movie. Powell, Harper’s cellmate, hears of the hidden loot as Harper sleep-talks, and after Powell is released from prison and Harper is executed for his crime, Powell sets out in his search for the money. Powell comes upon a Depression era small town and befriends Harper’s widow and his young son and daughter. The young John Harper (played by Billy Chapin) is skeptical of the smooth talking preacher, while everybody else quickly falls in love with him, after all a preacher is someone to be trusted. Powell marries the widowed Willa Harper (played by Shelley Winters) and soon the murderous side of Powell shows through. As Powell continues his search for the money the kids run off and come to the house of Rachel Cooper (played by Lillian Gish), an older woman who takes care of orphaned children. In the end, it is truly a battle of “love versus hate,” as are tattooed on the fingers of both hands of Rev. Powell, which proves to be an integral part near the beginning of the movie. Gish’s character represents the side of good, while Mitchum’s Powell is one of the most masterful portrayals of evil in cinema history; ranking twenty-ninth on the American Film Institute’s fifty greatest movie villains of all-time. Laughton described his frightening tale of “good and evil” as a “nightmarish Mother Goose tale.”

Laughton’s work, in his only directed effort, reminds some of great silent film director DW Griffith and German director Fritz Lang. However, due to the movies controversial villain the movie wasn’t well received upon its release and more than fifty years later seems lost as one of cinema’s greatest films.

“Once seen, The Night of the Hunter stays embedded in the consciousness as a great fifties horror movie because it moodily, unequivocally recognizes that American evangelicalism, like the ideology of the American family of this era, has the power to destroy as well as to nurture,” says Stengel. Peter Rainer in The National Society of Film Critics’ 100 Essential Films says, “Not only had I never seen another film like it; I had never imagined anything like it.” There were certainly no movies like The Night of the Hunter before 1955 and there haven’t been any movies that have rivaled it since. It is a timeless masterpiece filled with great symbolism and dark film noir images, along with almost flawless eerie acting by Mitchum. Laughton’s The Night of the Hunter is one of the greatest movies to ever grace the Hollywood big screen and should never be forgotten.