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The Night of the Hunter | 
 enlarge | Director: Charles Laughton
Actors: Robert Mitchum, Shelley Winters, Billy Chapin, Lillian Gish, Peter Graves
Studio: MGM (Video & DVD)
List Price: $14.98
Buy New: $7.40
You Save: $7.58 (51%)
New (20) Used (34) Collectible (5) from $6.82
Rating:  204 reviews
Format: Black & White
Languages: English (Subtitled), French (Subtitled), English (Original Language), French (Original Language)
Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Region: 1
Discs: 1
Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Running Time: 93 Minutes
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.1
Dimensions (in): 7.5 x 5.4 x 0.6
ISBN: 0792843363
UPC: 027616799425
EAN: 9780792843368
Theatrical Release Date: 1955
Release Date: January 25, 2000
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.com
In the entire history of American movies, The Night of the Hunter stands out as the rarest and most exotic of specimens. It is, to say the least, a masterpiece--and not just because it was the only movie directed by flamboyant actor Charles Laughton or the only produced solo screenplay by the legendary critic James Agee (who also cowrote The African Queen). The truth is, nobody has ever made anything approaching its phantasmagoric, overheated style in which German expressionism, religious hysteria, fairy-tale fantasy (of the Grimm-est variety), and stalker movie are brought together in a furious boil. Like a nightmarish premonition of stalker movies to come, Night of the Hunter tells the suspenseful tale of a demented preacher (Robert Mitchum, in a performance that prefigures his memorable villain in Cape Fear), who torments a boy and his little sister--even marries their mixed-up mother (Shelley Winters)--because he's certain the kids know where their late bank-robber father hid a stash of stolen money. So dramatic, primal, and unforgettable are its images--the preacher's shadow looming over the children in their bedroom, the magical boat ride down a river whose banks teem with fantastic wildlife, those tattoos of LOVE and HATE on the unholy man's knuckles, the golden locks of a drowned woman waving in the current along with the indigenous plant life in her watery grave--that they're still haunting audiences (and filmmakers) today. --Jim Emerson
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| Customer Reviews: Read 199 more reviews...
 Out of its time, out of any time July 21, 2010
Doreen Appleton (Scottsdale, Arizona)
I agree completely with Mr. Flanagan's rave review -- Night of the Hunter is a classic of imagery and mood -- but I think it is important to note that Agee intended the story to be deeply religious, and Charles Laughton directed it as a Bible story. The Biblical symbolism throughout -- the animals, the toad, the owl, the spider's web under which the skiff floats -- is the thematic armature of the story. It leads to the unforgettable moment when Harry Powell, outside the farm house, sings "Leaning on the everlasting arms," and Lillian Gish in her rocking chair with her shotgun sings the song along with him. Good and Evil understand each other.
Almost every image in the movie is fake. Studio river, studio farmhouse, studio spider web, studio boat. There are no more than two or three exteriors. But this was obviously planned. This is not a realistic film, it is a myth, a story.
Powell is not really human, as we learn when he emits an animal growl at the top of the basement stairs when the children close the door on his fingers, and even more when the river's current conspires to sweep the children's skiff just out of his reach, and he emits a true animal roar of rage and frustration. This is why Lillian Gish tells the sheriff, "I've got something trapped in my barn."
My favorite moment has always been when Powell has Gish half-convinced he is the children's father, and John says, "He ain't my father." Gish now says, "No, and he ain't no preacher neither." Evil has its domain, but cannot fool the eyes of the truly good.
A flop in its time (albeit a naive era), a curiosity today, NIGHT OF THE HUNTER is what Nietzsche called "intempestive" -- better, more elevated, for being out of its time.
A tribute to the value of the film is that so many reviewers here appreciate it profoundly.
The Everlasting Arms July 15, 2010
Timothy A. Mace
Freeze a film. Remove a clip from that film. Enlarge it. Frame it.
Some films contain images that stand alone as art -- provoking a sense of wonder, evil, romance, adventure, etc. Several classics come to mind:
Scarlet O'Hara standing at the train station surrounded by the dead and dying.
The monster's meeting his bride in THE BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN.
Marilyn Monroe standing on the subway grating in THE SEVEN YEAR ITCH.
Charlie Chaplin's tramp riding the gears of the huge machine in MODERN TIMES.
Marion Crane meeting Mrs. Bates in the shower in PSYCHO.
Some more modern films also contain them as well:
The little Jewish girl in the red coat in SCHINDLER'S LIST.
The silent train ride of oil man and his "adopted" baby son in THERE WILL BE BLOOD.
A new species of bird in UP.
A slow motion inmate of SHUTTER ISLAND warning Teddy Daniels with a silent "shhh."
Friends holding hands preparing for certain demise by trash crusher in TOY STORY 3.
Images which inspire memory, discussion, emotion long after the film is over. For a case of images that tell an amazing story, look no further than the strange classic THE NIGHT OF THE HUNTER. I can think of no other film which evokes such hypnotic beauty and childlike wonder, sadness, and fear simply by its images.
Some examples:
Shelly Winters trapped in a deadly marriage and in an attic bedroom with the shadows sealing her in a light and darkness coffin.
The dark terrors of a childhood bedroom lit only by the streetlamp outside.
Spiders,lizards, and other creepy-crawlies made enormous by the forshortening of the movie camera as two children escape on their little boat.
"Chi-i-i-l-l-dren!" as the deranged minister calls to the youngsters in the shadowy and evil cellar.
A beautiful girl toddler's mouth watering at the banquet laid before her which she cannot eat.
An old lady with a gun, singing and rocking, waiting, and waiting for evil to come to her house.
And the most effective of all?
A dead newly-wedded bride submerged in a car, strapped in, her throat slit into another gaping mouth while the currents play her hair into impossibly long strands.
I had to pause to wipe away goose bumps as I recalled that last one.
WATCH THIS FILM. IT DESERVES TO BE SEEN. YOU NEED TO HAVE IT AS PART OF YOUR FILM LEXICON!
What I Miss Most July 15, 2010
!Edwin C. Pauzer (New York City)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
It's the Depression. The place is West Virginia. A father, played by Peter Graves, has joined the ranks of the desperate and stole $10,000, killing two men in the process. The sound of sirens tell us that the law is on his tail. He's going to be caught, but where can he hide the money that he stole for his children. They know where, but the father swears them to secrecy. It will become the children's misfortune not only to have their father executed by hanging, but finding themselves pursued by a mysoginistic, psychopathic, preaching con artist who has shared a cell with the condemned man and learns about the stash. Upon his release he will do anything to get it, and the children will do anything they can do to survive. Their salvation might come in the form of a stern Rachel Cooper, an elderly lady, played by Lillian Gish, who takes in stray children, or will he kill her and them?
Originally panned by critics, this movie has generated a cult-like following and has been described as one of the top 100 films ever made. It is easy to see why. The acting talent is lead by Robert Mitchum who plays the murdering preacher, Harry Powell. He has an Elmer-Gantry-revival-tent personna. His smooth-talking spiritual hypnosis entrances the yokels, in particular, the wife of a storekeeper, Mrs. Icey Spoon, and the wife of the executed man played by Shelley Winters. Her son (Billy Chapin) knows what Powell is after, and decides to protect his younger sister as they journey on the Ohio River.
Scenes of a barn and house at twilight look like backgrounds on a stage or fake to the unimpressed. Yet, they add to the suspense and eerieness of the plot. Seeing a figure on horseback near dawn is haunting and even more nightmarish as his singing can be heard across a meadow. It is a voice soothing, beckoning and dangerous. It is evil coming for you, coming to do you harm. It is the hunter in the night.
This is the kind of movie that I miss. The kind I used to be able to find on the television during wintry Sunday afternoons, a movie that was a treat because of its suspense, the acting, and the plot. "The Night of the Hunter" is the kind of story that can take you back from incessant "Dirty Dancing" movies that make you feel like Ted Turner has it in for you, personally. This one will make you revel in movie-making history.
"I can hear ya whisperin' children, so I know you're down there. I can feel myself gettin' awful mad. I'm out of patience, children. I'm coming to find you now."
Feel the suspense!
Haunting June 10, 2010
Liz
Charles Laughton created a film filled with suspense and dark beauty. The character of Harry is evil personified; sometimes Robert Mitchum is so creepy I have to look away. Mitchum is under appreciated as an actor, and why, WHY, didn't Charles Laughton direct more films?
 It's a story of love and hate... March 18, 2010
C. Hall (Murray, Kentucky United States)
This film is fantastic, if you're familiar with it then you already know and if not you will soon find out. I recently bought this film after forgetting about it and remembering it while listening to "Left Hand, Right Hand" by the Murder City Devils which is based on the Night of the Hunter. My only problem with this edition is that is in full screen. When I bought I thought it had to be in wide screen considering it was the only edition available and it being made in the 1950's.
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