The Night Of The Hunter

Directed by Charles Laughton, The Night Of The Hunter follows a psychotic preacher (Robert Mitchum’s Harry Powell) as he insinuates himself into the lives of a small-town woman (Shelley Winters’ Willa) and her two children (Billy Chapin’s John and Sally Jane Bruce’s Pearl). Filmmaker Laughton, armed with James Agee’s screenplay, delivers a stylish yet relentlessly erratic endeavor that fares best when focused on Mitchum’s commanding figure, as the actor offers up an engaging and seriously electrifying performance that remains a highlight from start to finish – with Laughton also eliciting strong work from a supporting cast that includes, among others, Shelley Winters and Lillian Gish. It’s clear, then, that The Night Of The Hunter‘s predominantly less-than-enthralling atmosphere stems from its often excessively deliberate pace and recurring emphasis on Chapin and Bruce’s far-from-captivating characters, while the almost surreal bent of the picture’s third act ultimately does ensure that it peters out to a rather distressing degree – which finally cements the film’s place as an admittedly singular endeavor that’s perhaps not quite as uniformly successful as one might’ve hoped.

**1/2 out of ****