The Night of the Hunter (1955)

This film, the only film ever directed by Charles Laughton, is a film noir. The film begins with a man giving his son $10,000 that he stole and tells him to hide it and promise not to ever tell anyone where the money is. Moments later the man is arrested and later executed for the two murders he committed while stealing the money. Shortly thereafter, the children's mother, now a widow, marries a preacher. The preacher does is best to figure out where the money is, and eventually murders his new wife and attempts to get the money from the children. The plot is quite bizarre and not really what I would expect out of a film noir.

The adult leads in this film are played by Robert Mitchum, Shelley Winters, and Lilian Gish. Winters and Gish don't have all that large of parts, although they're both fairly decent, especially Gish. Mitchum on the other hand was absolutely awful. Although part of his bad acting may be due to the fact he was trying to come off in a somewhat unrealistic way as the film was almost an American example of 1920s German Expressionism, I still didn't really care for it. The two children in the film, played by Billy Chapin and Sally Jane Bruce, are probably the two best actors in the film which is somewhat surprising. I found Chapin's performance especially memorable despite the fact he was only 12 when this film was released and child actors generally annoy me.

Thematically, this film was quite odd. The film came off as very preachy and was constantly shoving religion down the viewers throat. The message was kind of confusing; however, as the most important character in the film was a preacher who happened to be a murderer and didn't appear to have any problems with murdering children.

Stylistically, this film was actually fairly decent. As I mentioned earlier, the film borrows a lot of stylistic aspects from German Expressionism. While the film is generally regarded as a film noir, the stylistic elements were rather pre-noir and one could argue this is an Expressionist film more than anything.

Overall, this film just wasn't all that good. In retrospect, the plot wasn't as bad as it seemed as the movie was progressing and there were some pretty dramatic moments. Despite these strengths, the plot was just too bizarre to be all that enjoyable. The acting was also decent other than Mitchum who came off as way too exaggerated in his acting. While the film was Expressionist in style, it is not a silent film and there was no reason for him to act like it was. The Expressionist elements, while pretty good, aren't enough to overcome the weaknesses this film presents. It might be worth seeing for film noir fans, but I wouldn't recommend it.

61/100
D-

UP NEXT: A western of some sorts, probably Once Upon a Time in the West.

is it really that bad to get a D-