The Night of the Hunter – 1955 Laughton
The Night of the Hunter is much more than just the chance for Robert Mitchum to sink his teeth into the Harry Powell character- one of the all-time great screen villains. It has been described as one of the great American Gothic films-- Charles Laughton described it himself as a “nightmarish sort of Mother Goose tale”- and upon revisit I was surprised at how musical it was, there are four songs in the first 18-minutes, and Mitchum’s marvelous baritone often sings a few bars of “Leaning” …. haunting. The film opens with Lillian Gish telling a story to some