The Night of The Hunter tells us a story about Harry Powell, a man who marries widows for money and kills them. While in jail, he finds out that his cellmate, Ben who is about to be hanged, had committed a robbery. After being released, Harry Powell decided to marry Ben's widow in order to find out where Ben had hid the stolen money before he was captured.
The interesting part of this film is that the main character is a religious fanatic. He did not only use people's faith to get them to do anything he wanted, but he actually believed that what he was doing was right. He also had his own weird principles I guess, for example, on their wedding night he tells Ben's widow that they will never have sex because it is sinful. I highly doubt he acted this way because he found her unattractive, I mean, after all the things he had done to find the money, sleeping with a woman he didn't like wouldn't be much of a problem.
The rest of the movie is a disaster. At first I thought that may be The Night of the Hunter is considered to be good because it was way ahead of its time back in 1955, but then in Wikipedia I read that it was not a success with either audiences or critics at its initial release, and Laughton never directed another film, nevertheless, the film has found a wider audience over the years.
This leaves me at loss. The beginning with the drifting heads is cheesy. All the women in the movie are absolutely dumb, what is up with their fanatic devotion to Powell? He's definitely not very slick, so why does he always come out on top? And whereas the first half of the plot was not that bad, and at times even thrilling, the second half, after the kids flee down the river turns into a social drama. And that's where the movie stopped making sense to me, and left me wondering why it had gained such widespread acclaim.
Interesting fact: So disappointed was he by the poor reception of this film on its initial release both critically and commercially, Charles Laughton vowed never to direct a film again, and he never did. The film he was planning to direct next was going to be a screen adaptation of "The Naked and the Dead.
Favorite quote: "Salvation is a last-minute business, boy".
wow I have never even heard of this. Like the sound of the premise, shame it seems to drift half way through, and seens as I agree on all your opinions on the movies I have seen that you have reviewed, I can imagine me feeling the same about this one. Great review
ReplyDeleteThat's a shame that you didn't like it. It's not really meant to be social drama. I think it's meant to be a fairy tale. The river sequence almost feels like it was illustrated rather than filmed.
ReplyDeleteThen again, it's been awhile since I watched it so I could do with another viewing.
There is a typo in the post title. Not 1995, 1955.
Dempsey, thanks, you still might wanna give it a try because there are a lot of people who liked it.
ReplyDeleteMichael, thanks for pointing it out, I fixed it. This film mixes up too many genres.
I liked this movie. It isn't one of my favorites, but it was surreal enough to find it interesting. I think the film capture you posted with it, is an example of that.
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