Dundead: The Night of the Hunter (70th Anniversary)

There are those films which are not just exemplars of their specific genre or mood or era, but bonafide classics of cinema in general. Films which are technically and artistically dazzling, but also, crucially, brilliantly entertaining. Films like Sunset Boulevard, The Wizard of Oz, The Searchers or Seven Samurai. Charles Laughton’s 1955 film The Night of the Hunter is one such film. 

The Night of the Hunter is, remarkably, the sole film directed by Laughton, who was an accomplished and recognised character actor. Based on a 1953 novel of the same name by Davis Grubb, it’s a gorgeous, dreamlike Southern Gothic parable, hauntingly dark, and gloriously ripe. 

Robert Mitchum gives an unforgettable performance as Harry Powell, the murderous preacher with ‘Love’ and ‘Hate’ tattooed on his knuckles, sent to terrorise two children, John and Pearl. It’s the role of a lifetime, and Mitchum more than rises to the occasion. Chilling scenes of him outside John and Pearl’s window at night reciting hymns, calling to the youngsters in his distinct sing-song drawl – “chilllll-dren” – taunting and haunting them. 

Drawing on German expressionist films like Nosferatu and aided by cinematographer Stanley Cortez (as well as storyboards by Grubb), Laughton creates a luminous world of black and white, delivering almost too many memorable images and moments to list amidst the pervasive, clingy and sweltering atmosphere. 

The film has been endlessly influential on future filmmakers from Scorsese and Guillermo del Toro to Spike Lee and the Coen Brothers (who have borrowed dialogue and music from it more than once).  

And in terms of its horror credentials, allow William Friedkin, director of the Exorcist to sell it to you – “I was twenty years old when I first saw it. It terrified me then, and still does.
 The preacher, played by Robert Mitchum, is the most frightening
 psychopath I’ve ever seen depicted.”