The Night of the Hunter

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Interesting, and somewhat engaging, but odd. Robert Mitchum's performance is over-the-top, the other performances are lackluster, except for the character of the older woman who takes the children in. Mitchum's role especially presages Robert De Niro in the reamke of Cape Fear.

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The Night of the Hunter

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As you watch this film, the irrational, troubling feeling that you know it... that the horror you mother tried to soothe away with a sip of sugar water saying, hush, it was only a dream... which you've always tried to forget, had been lurking here all the time, waiting for the unguarded moment to get you....

The Night of the Hunter awakens a primal sense of evil and fear as no other film I know. Robert Mitchum embodies evil which is profound and petty, vicious and maudlin, prescient and idiotic, and always, always relentlessly bearing down on what we fear most..

This is sustained, inspired filmmaking of the highest order. Action and character unfold together, seamlessly. There is not one scene superfluous to the film as a whole, nothing you could or would do without.. And the counter to Mitchum's evil (Mrs. Cooper - Lillian Gish) is afforded just the right weight.. As for the two children, well, I have no idea how Charles Laughton coaxed these performances out of them. Superb.

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The Night of the Hunter

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This movie is so well-loved in certain quarters that I hesitate to trash it, but I simply cannot recommend it.

Charles Laughton's quasi-expressionistic direction is extremely stilted and out-of-date. The actors are dreadfully hammy, particularly Robert Mitchum as the scenery-chewing baddie at the center of the film and Shelley Winters as the zombie-like woman he kills. What little acting she does is not only cut short by Mitchum's knife but by ridiculously rapid cutting from scene to scene, while long scenes in which her children float downriver to escape from the evil con-man preacher are supposed to be artsy but struck me as dull and pretentious. And the corny lines that the actors are forced to utter are frequently utterly embarrassing.

I found the story lacked all suspense, which is the most damning thing I can say about what is purported to be a suspense film. For a character to be menacing, he must be unpredictable, but Mitchum's character is so one-dimensional, telegraphing every move he makes, that I had to groan again and again. To care about characters in peril, they must seem real to you, yet this film is terribly unrealistic and unbelievable.

If you must see this hoary film, catch it on late-night TV, but don't bother buying it. I very much doubt you'll want to see it a second time. If you want to buy a well-acted, well-directed film about a corrupt preacher, choose "Elmer Gantry" with Burt Lancaster in the leading role.

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