PG, 1 hr. 33 min. Directed By:
Charles Laughton. Release Date:
Jan 1, 1955. DVD Release
Date: May 15, 2001.
I’m going to start by saying that
this movie has a single flaw, and I struggled with accommodating that. The
Night of the Hunter just simply didn’t age well. It took me about half the movie to realize
that once upon a time, before stalker movies, and well, the 1980s just in
general, this probably would have been terrifying, or at least nerve-wracking. I haven’t seen the original Cape Fear, but I’m thinking that once
upon a time Night would have had the
same impact as Cape Fear, which
managed to freak me out back in the 90s.
Although, to be fair, it wasn’t until the final… 30 minutes of the movie
that it finally dawned on me that this probably would have been scary (and in
fact, that this movie was SUPPOSED to be scary) to the original audiences.
It is REALLY hard to get past
that. As a result, I didn’t love this
movie. I can see that the camera work
(except for the zoom ins) and most of the acting was remarkably good. I especially liked Robert Mitchum, who was
actually the only member of this cast that I’d heard of prior to this movie,
was pretty good. There were a couple of
scenes that I thought were way too hokey, and he was the direct creator of that
feeling, but overall I have generally positive thoughts about what I just saw.
I had some issues with the story
flow. Particularly, I was really, really
confused about where the mob came from.
Normally, I’m anti-mob unless I’m at its head, and this was no
exception. I’m not sure what the hell
they were yelling about, or why the mob was charging, but hey, it was there and
seemingly unnerving Ms. Cooper and her brood.
It reminded me a bit of the scene from Archer where all the drones start protesting their salaries with “What
do we want? CHANGE! When do we want it? UNFAIR!”
I tried to go hunting for the clip, because it’s pretty funny, but
YouTube has failed me yet again. I’m
also astounded that the preacher didn’t expect a gun in some farmhouse out on
the edges of town. Shit, I went to
dinner with seven people about a month ago and I was the only one without a gun
AT THE RESTAURANT. The rest of these
people actually had more guns at home.
It also kind of cracks me up that in
the 50s there were still teenage boys in town trying to chase tail, and
apparently successfully based on what Ruby ‘fesses up to. Cheebus.
Talk about shattering a myth.
