June 13 movie: The Night of the Hunter. I had seen this movie before, but it didn't have the same impact on me the first time. I guess I just didn't get it. This time, oh man. It hit me with a wallop. Robert Mitchum, Shelley Winters and Lillian Gish are all at the top of their games. Winters always blows me away. She's so vulnerable it's a little painful to watch.
The visuals are amazing. Almost expressionist (if I can say that without sounding too pompous). There are a few shots which have been haunting me since I saw it last week: the children's first encounter with Mitchum, when little boy's shadow is blotted out by Mitchum's shadow; Mitchum and Winters' final confrontation in a bedroom that looks like a chapel, and the way she lies in her bed like she's already dead; Winters' body sitting underwater in the car, her hair and the reeds flowing together; Mitchum futiley chasing the children's boat through the water, arms raised like some kind of wild creature.
[spoiler alert] The most shocking thing was near the end, when Mitchum is caught by the police. To show how badly I had missed the mark the first time I saw this movie, I remembered the end completely wrong: I remembered that after Mitchum was captured the children gave the money to Gish, and then they all lived happily and much more comfortably ever after.
Actually the little boy reacts exactly as when his own father (Peter Graves), the bank robber who set everything in motion, was captured at the beginning of the movie. When the boy yelled "No, don't! Take it; it's too much!" and threw the money on Mitchum's body, the hairs literally stood up on the back of my neck. It's rare to see such profound emotion communicated in so few words, by a child actor no less.
And that wasn't the only major issue to chew on in this movie: There was also Depression-era poverty: when the children beg for food as they travel along the river, they get lost in the crowds of other children also begging at every farmhouse. And Robert Mitchum's superbly creepy minister/sexual predator, first wearer of the oft-imitated "Love/Hate" knuckle tattoos. I don't know if the "evil preacher" was as much of a cliche in 1955 as it is now. But Mitchum's character avoids cliche by being, as far as I can tell, completely sincere in his faith. He seems to believe that God is at least okay with, if not outright approving of, him killing all those women so he can use their money to preach. Early in the film he prays "Not that You mind the killings. Your book is full of killings."
What really saves this movie from being an exercise in Christian-bashing is Lillian Gish. Her character practices what she preaches, having devoted her life to raising orphans. Talk about faith versus works! It's telling that Gish is the only female character, young or old, who isn't immediately seduced by Mitchum. She sees right through him and her force of will is stronger than his. (Not to mention her shotgun trumping his switchblade.) And I think her character narrowly avoids being overly saintly, despite the saccharine "they abide" speech at the end, due to the shot of her waiting for Mitchum with a gun in her lap.
The Night of the Hunter is not just a good, scary story with creepy visuals, but one of the best and most complex movies I've seen in a long time. Charles Laughton was a damned genius and I can't believe he never directed again.
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