The Night of the Hunter

“Lord, save little children.” Whether you call it a noir poem, a children’s horror movie, a Biblical deconstruction, a lyrical thriller, a Christian allegory, a Depression-era nightmare, or a crime fantasy, it’s undeniable that Charles Laughton’s The Night of the Hunter is its own kind of masterpiece and contains some of the most beautiful expressionistic compositions in all of cinema, not just noir. Viewed through a Christian lens, the film juxtaposes the fake, cruel, and nonsensical “religion” of Reverend Harry Powell (Robert Mitchum) with the simple, kind, and authentic faith of Rachel Cooper (Lillian Gish), establishing a good-versus-evil conflict that nods to the animal kingdom while taking on an undeniably cosmic dimension. Having learned about a stash of stolen loot at the home of Ben Harper (Peter Graves), his recently executed prison cellmate, ex-con Powell, a delusional preacher and serial killer (“What’s it gonna be, Lord, another widow?”), re-locates to Harper’s home town and marries his widow Willa (Shelley Winters), an insecure, impressionable woman (“Help me to get clean so I can be what Harry wants me to be”) who’s most interested in acquiring a father for her small children John (Harry Chapin) and Pearl (Sally Jane Bruce). Having been entrusted with the money’s secret location by their now deceased father, John and Pearl refuse to tell Harry, which enrages the preacher and endangers the kids’ lives, compelling them to run (actually, row) away and fend for themselves, ultimately finding shelter with the goodhearted, tough-minded Cooper, who guards them and her other foundlings with a big shotgun and a little faith (she discovers them on the riverbank just as the Pharoah’s daughter discovered the baby Moses). Mitchum’s performance is creepy, hateful, and cartoonish all at the same time, a villain like none we’ve seen before or since (“Speak or I’ll cut your throat and leave you to drip like a hog hung up around butchering time”), and the two children are outstanding, especially Chapin, who is able to convey both age-appropriate vulnerability and big brother resolve brilliantly as if growing into a man before our eyes. Schumann’s score incorporates his own arrangements of traditional children’s songs, which, combined with the storybook settings and almost fantasy-level cinematography, is a constant reminder of our collective innocence lost.