"night of the hunter"

I think the film has inspired even better films: Badlands for example. And that haunting "Two little children..." song was used in a recent French movie, The Devils.

Why didn't Laughton direct again?

Having finally picked NOTH up and seen it -- The Haunting (original Robert Wise version) is far more the flat out scarier, but NOTH is definitely unsettling, and as noted its cinematography is grand.

Sure is, and it's a great transfer, so I think. Damn skimpy on anything extra, though, which is a shame -- the original trailer, some brief notes in the booklet, that's about it.

"this time it'll be a privilege!" [tips hat joyfully)

the owl and the rabbit

this is oz the movie!!

Thrillers that end on a note of unexpected and unabashed optimism (NotH, Femme Fatale) = even more shocking?

Prima fissy - i dont think it's funny at all - i can't understand that.

Would make a great thread.

those kids are awful.

He wouldn't have done what Laughton did with the material. What would Welles have done with any material. This is a straw man argument.

the woman in the water, of course, the woman in the water.

when mitchum is abt to kill the woman, the shot switches from a close-up view to a shot of the full room, which because at night is bordered in black. i suppose i can't really articulate why this shot is so remarkable.

and one i hated:

the reprise of the 'don't! DON'T!' when mitchum is arrested: this was painful enough the first time round, the boy's first don't too reticent and insincere, his second much too stilted and annoying: and it's acted the same way both times. blech.

i really love the singing all throughout this film too: is that really r. mitchum's voice?

haha oz the movie! i don't see it but i want to!

are welles and laughton similar? when were they around? what's 'touch of evil' like? at all similar?

Maybe partly because the scene is so obviously shot on a sound stage and he not only doesnt attempt to hide the unreality of the thing but actually accentuates it. I suppose thats pretty radical for its time.

anyway memory sux, i got it on tape so maybe tomorrow

Two points - set design and river sequence alone make this a keeper.

and which do i watch most

As for the river sequence, the pure Moses/Homer/Aesop/Brothers Grimm gels there perfectly. It's like a cohesion and perversion of every twisted bit of children's literature. Which also goes to show how perverse the genre is enough that (in my view) censorship is a moot point when we let children read things like that which are just as grotesque. (Which to me is fine - it's the censorship that I'm patronizing.)

(another good thread idea.)

Passion of Joan of Arc got some soft support, Sunrise (my personal guess) nearly came out on top, but in the end we had settled on Night of the Hunter. Now I have to open the question back up among my chums.

There, now destroy that one you ciniphile-nihilist fuckers!

on TCM tomorrow night (6/15) at 8pm

http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lyffearYSg1qcay1ao1_500.gif

http://29.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lyf612nLEX1qcay1ao1_500.gif

http://29.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lydwdwHkzX1qcay1ao1_500.gif

so, Gish fires one shot at Mitchum and he goes squawking into the barn like a cartoon rooster? mysteriously unsatisfying climax, and someone on the Criterion commentary says as much.

That whole sequence is perfectly filmed.

just disappointingly conceived?

Not really disappointing by my estimation.

I regard this as one of the two or three closest things to a perfect movie.

Chiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiillllldreeennnn.....

I MUST see this movie again! Soon.....

I've never really done too much hard thinking about it, but the ending certainly seems deliberate in its effect--Gish's character is certainly as archetypal as Mitchum's in that respect...

Just found the book Night of the Hunter on a bargain table and read it; it's actually very good and it turns out the movie is a REALLY faithful adaptation.

This is true and was trying to remember it when somebody said something similar on the thread about The Maltese Falcon.

I watched this three days ago. I can't stop thinking about it...

"Once upon a time there was a pret-ty fly... She flew away, away, awayyy..."

Chiiiiiiiiiiiiiiildreeeeeeeeeeeeeennnnnnn

Watched it recently too. The sail-boat + pearl signing scene so beautiful

leeeeeeaaaaning

The religious sensibilities of Harry Powell vs. Rachel Cooper one of the more interesting parts of the movie to me. Both operate with a similar form of zeal. It is a very strange story where religious fanaticism is criticised throughout the film, even when Rachel is originally introduced, and then we get a complete turn around where Rachel’s fanaticism channeled into a strict moral sense of the world is the saving grace of the Children. The John and Moses scene shows the malleability of Rachel’s zeal to the protection of those around her. Powell’s zeal manifests solely in his self-interest. Does the zeal enable/catalyse their temperaments? I get some would say Harry Powell’s “religion” is a scam, and from an outsiders perspective this is obvious, but I don’t think it’s a scam for him. It’s a weapon that he believes in. He simply never breaks the act, and the first scene of him driving sets us up to know this is who he is to himself. The movie reveals zeal to be a blank canvas only in the last act. I think it is really smart to do so

xp and the leaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaning duet is the crescendo of all that!^^ Harry disappears when the light of Ruby comes into the scene. Rachel has an exterior object in her zeal, she sings “leaning on Jesus” while Harry merely sings “leaning”, no definitive object to ground his zeal. It’s as if Ruby is correcting his zeal when she comes in with her part: “you missed the most important lyric!”

Anyways, I loved this movie

I teach it every semester and it freaks out my students; it fits no preconceived notions of narrative.

Why are they all yelling “Bluebeard” at him during the courtroom scene?

Must have had a Bluebeard in the original colour

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bluebeard?

Bluebeard" (French: Barbe bleue, [baʁb(ə) blø]) is a French folktale, the most famous surviving version of which was written by Charles Perrault and first published by Barbin in Paris in 1697 in Histoires ou contes du temps passé. The tale tells the story of a wealthy man in the habit of murdering his wives and the attempts of the present one to avoid the fate of her predecessors.

It's the best depiction of the early 20th century rural America I've read about: kind and neighborly and ready to lynch you at a moment's notice.

The soundtrack with Laughton narrating is a total trip

https://open.spotify.com/track/7m5eep5h1CTw387aawZR91?si=E8S64x4nQDa_xJHGmClIgA

It's beem days now and I am obsessed with this film

I thought I’d clicked on the Minions thread and was surprised and confused for a while

Owned the Criterion Bluray for a while but just now saw it for the first time theatrically thanks to a one-off Alamo screening (possibly because the film does end with Christmas, who knows). Anyway, what a treat to see that way.

This is one of my favorite movies. Any other old flicks that are sorta like this?

I know I said on another thread that I haven't seen any old movies. But I've seen the best ones, and this is probably the best one.

This is one of my favorite movies. Any other old flicks that are sorta like this?

Maybe a bit of a stretch but I would like to recommend Curse of the Cat People. #onethread

Carnival of Souls, maybe?

It's been a while since I saw it but Shadow Of A Doubt might fit

Ah, I should watch this again. I've seen it just once and it blew my mind.

I might try and lobby a rewatch to my partner tomorrow. God, will she like it? I hope so...

I know I said on another thread that I haven't seen any old movies. But I've seen the best ones, and this is probably the best one.

― Jonk Raven (dog latin)

No, there aren't really. Laughton came up with something unique in tone and texture.

It's sort of a one-off, road not taken. Laughton never got to direct another film.

I really slept on this one since I generally don't watch movies this old unless they're from Europe. But wow, so amazing, when the kids take off in the boat and the girl starts singing, I remember it at least has someone else actually doing the singing maybe? probably? so it has this otherworldy quality to it. Gonna make a wild guess that David Lynch was a fan of that part too.

A fave moment is when she fires the gun into the dark and he lets out a yelp like a Looney Tunes character.

Our local indie theater is showing an old 16mm print of this next week, I’m gonna go. I don’t think I’ve ever seen it on a screen bigger than a TV.

That Looney Tunes moment discomfited my students when I showed it this fall; they weren't sure if they were supposed to laugh. I said, "Laugh!"

I notice that people are either too ready to laugh old movies, or are afraid to.

An "old school" movie for students is anything before 2010.

I watched this once with a group of people, one of who was treating it as a straight comedy and laughing hysterically all the way through. It was really annoying.

This is one of my favorite movies. Any other old flicks that are sorta like this?

I've been trying to think of anything and no, not really. Plenty of noir films saturated with an impending sense of doom though. I'd guess Fritz Lang's M was an influence on Laughton, more so than something like The Grapes of Wrath.

Visually, I was thinking of some Murnau, like Sunrise. But the tone of this movie is so strange.

The best I can do here is second James Redd's endorsement of Curse of the Cat People.

There’s a scene in this where Mitchum lets out one of the most visceral screams ever recorded