The Pen in Hand Guide to the Movies: Revisiting the Classics

A Hidden Gem: Night of the Hunter

Illustration by Michael DiMilo

By Geoff Carter

In this new series “Revisiting the Classics” brought to you by The Pen in Hand Guide to the Movies, we will be looking at great films of the past that were seminal influences on today’s filmmakers. Sometimes revisiting the past can lend new insights into the present—and perhaps the future. In fact, knowing the history of film is a prerequisite for understanding today’s cinematic grammar and construction. 

We all know that movies like Citizen Kane, The Seven Samurai, or Rules of the Game were landmarks in the evolution of cinema. Orson Welles’s use of low angles and depth of field in, Akira Kurosawa’s use of multiple cameras, and Jean Renoir’s use of mise-en-scene and layering of action within the frame revolutionized the art of cinema.

Other less well-appreciated classics were just as influential. Cinematic elements in Charles Laughton’s Night of the Hunter—unfortunately the only film he ever directed—have informed the works of the Coen Brothers, Spike Lee, Guillermo del Toro, and others. 

I recently sat down with some friends and watched this classic 1955 film. For those of you who haven’t had the opportunity to see the movie, it’s not only a heart-wrenching noir-influenced thriller but is a uniquely conceived and executed piece of cinema. 

Shot in black and white during an era of spectacular technicolor and Hollywood extravaganzas that featured casts of thousands, like 1959’s Ben Hur or pastel-splashed musicals like Oklahoma!, Night of the Hunter look harkened back to many of the conventions of silent film, including the beautiful black and white cinematography. The high-contrast expressionistic visuals not only emphasize the stark times of the Depression-era story but also brings out the inner darkness and struggles of the characters themselves. 

Director Charles Laughton, better known for his distinguished acting career, appearing in such classics as The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Mutiny on the Bounty, and Spartacus, brought a unique vision to this harrowing narrative of psychotic preacher Harry Powell (Robert Mitchum) and his quest to find the loot stolen by his ex-cellmate Ben Harper (Peter Graves) and hidden with his children John (Billy Chapin) and Pearl (Sally Jane Bruce). 

Powell weasels his way into the heart of Harper’s widow Willa (Shelley Winters), eventually persuading her to marry him. It is not a love match—on the contrary, Powell only wants to badger her children to find out where the money is. He attempts to browbeat and intimidate them but cannot get them to tell. When Willa discovers what he is up to, he kills her and dumps her body into the river. 

John takes Pearl and runs to his friend Uncle Birdie Steptoe (James Gleason) who, shocked by the sight of Willa’s body in the river, has become insensibly drunk. John takes his skiff downriver, trying to escape the mad preacher. He and Pearl drift down, stopping occasionally to beg food or sleep, but the preacher is always just one step behind.

After going aground while asleep, they are discovered by Rachel Cooper (Lillian Gish) a widow who has already taken in three children orphaned by the hardships of the Depression. Mrs. Cooper takes them in, but Powell soon shows up, telling Rachel they are his children. She doesn’t believe him and chases him off her property with a shotgun, but Powell, determined to get the money, is not so easily daunted. Their standoff ends in a harrowing climax worthy of a Coen Brothers shocker.

The production design, lighting, and cinematography are—especially for this cinematic period—highly stylized. Some of the sets, particularly those in the Harper house, include not only the interiors, but also the exteriors, including outlines of the roof and walls, lending both a sense of voyeurism (Rear Window) and claustrophobia to the screen. During the scene when Willa is confronting Harry about his true intentions, the camera pulls back away from the room revealing the outline of the roof and steeply sloping walls, giving the impression of a church—Harry Powell’s demented temple of hate and greed, an expressionistic detailing of his psyche.

In another scene, John attempts to fool Powell by taking him into the basement to show him where the money is hidden. When the children lead him down the stairs, the camera again pulls back to reveal the walls of the basement. This framing encapsulates not only the children’s imprisonment by Powell, but their helplessness—much like an animal caught in a trap, a motif that Laughton continues to return to over and over.

The film settings resemble painted sets—much like a set in a play. Instead of producing a realistic mimetic narrative, director Laughton seems to be emphasizing the artifice of the medium, underlining the fact that celluloid does not have to be confined to exterior reality, but can also be used to represent not only the inner workings of character, but also the representative symbolism of that psychology. 

When the children are floating downriver in their skiff, Laughton places different creatures like rabbits, frogs, or birds in the foreground as the boat floats by in the background. One shot has the boat passing behind a spiderweb. This fantastical journey is underscored with children singing what sounds like a solemn sort of lullaby. The whole sequence has a very fairy-tale like feel—like the dark narrative of a Grimm Brothers cautionary tale. 

At one point during their trip downriver, the children are sleeping in the loft a barn, and John is awakened by the preacher singing “Leaning on the Everlasting Arms”, his signature hymn. His silhouette appears on the background of a dark landscape that almost seems to be a painted background for a puppet show, demonstrating the sort of nightmare surrealness the children are experiencing.  To the children, Harry Powell is the combination of the big bad wolf and the evil stepmother. Indeed, when frustrated, he growls and howls like a cornered beast.

This sort of delving into the psychology of children is particularly evident in the work of Guillermo del Toro. Pan’s Labyrinth contrasts the terrors of a child’s imagination with the real-life horrors of the Spanish Civil War. Southern Gothic influences, like those in Joseph Anthony’s underrated film Tomorrow—adapted by Horton Foote, and in The Coen Brother’s Oh Brother, Where art Thou?

Theatrical tropes like Mrs. Cooper’s odd soliloquies (rationalized by comments about her talking to herself) are belied when she stares straight into the camera, telling us how strong children are. Powell’s conversations with God are less intrusive narrative tropes, they are still disturbing. Martin Scorsese’s Cape Fear, particularly the character of Max Cady, or John Goodman’s depiction of the complicated Charlie Meadows (“Madman” Mundt) in the Coen Brothers classic Barton Fink. Even Radio Rahim’s depiction of the struggle between love and hate in Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing is a direct tribute to Laughton’s work.

Cinema is a constantly evolving art form. New insights and cinematic devices are constantly being revisited, updated, and improved. When a film like Night of the Hunter emerges, and (even though it was panned by critics as an artistic failure and box-office bomb), its influence reaches far into its future—our present—and much further beyond. Laughton’s directorial genius has resonated deeply into the world of cinema.