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The Night of the Hunter
Directed by	Charles Laughton
Produced by	Paul Gregory
Written by	Davis Grubb (novel) James Agee Charles Laughton
Starring	Robert Mitchum Shelley Winters Lillian Gish
Music by	Walter Schumann
Cinematography	Stanley Cortez
Editing by	Robert Golden
Distributed by	United Artists
Release date(s)	September 29, 1955
Running time	93 min.
Country	USA
Language	English
Budget	$795,000 (estimated)
All Movie Guide profile
IMDb profile

The Night of the Hunter is a 1955 film noir, starring Robert Mitchum and Shelley Winters, and the only film Charles Laughton ever directed. The film is based on the novel of the same name by Davis Grubb, adapted for the screen by James Agee and Charles Laughton. The novel and film draw on the true story of Harry Powers, hanged in 1932 for the murders of two widows and three children in Clarksburg, West Virginia. The film's lyric and expressionistic style sets it apart from almost all other Hollywood films of the 1940s and 50s, and has influenced later directors such as David Lynch, Martin Scorsese, Jean Renoir, Terrence Malick, and the Coen Brothers.

The Library of Congress has deemed the film "culturally significant." It has also been selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry.

Contents 1 Cast 2 Plot 3 Making of the film 4 Themes/Motifs 5 Response 6 Influence and References 6.1 The LOVE and HATE tattoos 6.2 The Coen Brothers 6.3 Other references 7 Remake 8 References 9 Further reading 10 External links 10.1 DVD reviews

• Robert Mitchum : Harry Powell
• Shelley Winters : Willa Harper
• Billy Chapin : John Harper
• Sally Jane Bruce : Pearl Harper
• Lillian Gish : Rachel Cooper
• James Gleason : Birdie Steptoe
• Evelyn Varden : Icey Spoon
• Peter Graves : Ben Harper
• Don Beddoe : Walt Spoon
• Gloria Castillo : Ruby

The film is set in West Virginia, along the Ohio River. The time in which the story takes place is not made explicit, but appears to be the 1930s, during the Great Depression.

Ben Harper (Peter Graves) is sentenced to hang for his part in a robbery in which two men were killed. Before he is caught though, he hides the stolen money, trusting only his children John (Billy Chapin) and Pearl (Sally Jane Bruce)—about ten and five years old, respectively—with the money's location. Harry Powell (Robert Mitchum), a self-appointed preacher with the word "LOVE" tattooed on the knuckles of his right hand and "HATE" on the knuckles of his left, shares a prison cell with Harper. He tries to get Harper to tell him the hiding place before his execution, but the only clue he gets is a Biblical quotation Harper mutters in his sleep: "And a child shall lead them."

Convinced that Harper told his children the secret, upon his release from prison, Powell woos and marries Harper's widow, Willa (Shelley Winters). He questions them, especially John, about the money whenever they are alone, but they distrust him and reveal nothing. Willa eventually finds out, so he kills her.

Powell finally learns the money's location from Pearl by threatening John, but the children escape with the cash and find sanctuary with Rachel Cooper (Lillian Gish). Powell eventually finds them, but Rachel sees through his false persona. After a climactic standoff between Rachel and Powell, he is arrested by the police. He is then tried for twenty-five murders and sentenced to be executed.

The film resulted from a collaboration between a superb and intelligent actor on stage as well as film, Charles Laughton, and one of the most intellectually sophisticated screenwriters of classic Hollywood, James Agee. Agee was also perhaps the best film reviewer of his day. Laughton drew heavily on the harsh, angular look of German expressionist films of the 1920s, such as The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari.

The film's music, composed and arranged by Walter Schumann in close association with Laughton, features a combination of nostalgic and expressionistic orchestral passages. The film also includes two original songs by Schumann, "Lullaby" (sung by Lillian Gish's character) and the haunting "Pretty Fly" (sung by Pearl). A recurring musical device involves The Preacher making his presence known by singing the traditional hymn "Leaning on the Everlasting Arms". Mitchum also recorded the soundtrack version of the hymn.

In 1974, film archivist Robert Gitt Anthony Slide retrieved several boxes of photographs, sketches, memos and letters relating to the film from Laughton's widow Elsa Lanchester for the American Film Institute. She also gave the Institute over 80,000 feet of rushes and outtakes from the filming. In 1981, this material was sent to the UCLA Film and Television Archive where, for the next 20 years, they were edited into a two-and-half hour documentary that premiered in 2002, at UCLA's Festival of Preservation.

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• Love/Hate -- The struggle between Good and Evil, most memorably in the scene where Powell tells the story behind his tattooed knuckles;
• Faith in God -- Powell's twisted belief in God is part of why he kills people (in the name of the Lord). He also pretends to be a preacher and preaches the Gospel, a further claimed connection with God. Conversely, Rachel lives by the Bible, and quotes it. The two of them have a sort of spiritual test of faith when Powell sits outside her house through the night, singing what he can remember of the hymn "Leaning on Jesus (The Everlasting Arms)"; Rachel fills in the lyrics with conviction, in a way that casts doubt on Powell's claimed faith;
• Perverse Sexuality --Powell's knife has obvious phallic connotations, and the pain and death he inflicts with it substitute for sexual fulfillment. His marriage to Willa, for example, is never consummated -- instead, he cuts her throat.

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Stanley Cortez' striking cinematography has been much noted and imitated, and Mitchum's chilling and sinister performance has been especially praised. Nevertheless, Night of the Hunter was not a success with either audiences or critics at its initial release, which probably explain why Charles Laughton never directed another film. Over time, Night of the Hunter acquired a cult following, in part thanks to frequent screenings on television, and came to be praised as a masterpiece and one of the finest examples of film noir.

Roger Ebert wrote of the film, "It is one of the most frightening of movies, with one of the most unforgettable of villains, and on both of those scores it holds up ... well after four decades (.)"^[1]

Night of the Hunter is #90 on Bravo's 100 Scariest Movie Moments.

The LOVE and HATE tatoos on Harry Powell's hands have often been mentioned, imitated, and hinted at in popular culture, to wit:

• In The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975), the character of Eddie, played by rocker Meat Loaf has the words Love and Hate tattooed across his own fingers.

• The Clash's "Death or Glory" from 1979's London Calling includes the line, "Love and Hate tattooed across the knuckles on his hands"

• Two shots in the opening sequence of The Blues Brothers (1980) focus on Jake and Elwood's hands. Jake's has "J-A-K-E" tattooed on the knuckles of his right hand, while Elwood's has "E-L-W-O" on his.... with "O-D" on his left.

• Bruce Springsteen's "Cautious Man" from his 1987 album Tunnel of Love contains the lyrics: "On his right hand Billy'd tattooed the word 'love'/ and on his left hand was the word 'fear'/ And in which hand he held his fate was never clear".

• In Spike Lee's Do The Right Thing (1989), the character Radio Raheem delivers an-almost verbatim version of Powell's famed monologue about his tattooed hands (see below), only with brass knuckle rings replacing the tattoos.

• The cover of the 1989 album Peace and Love by the Irish band The Pogues shows a boxer with the words "Peace" and "Love" tattooed on his fingers. A 6th finger has been added to the man's right hand to make room for the word "Peace".

• The Ren and Stimpy show had an episode featuring a villain named the Reverend Jack Cheese, a crazed con-man voiced by Frank Gorshin who had "pity" and "self-pity" tattooed on his fingers,the episode is one of the few Games episodes liked by Spumco and Games fans alike,while The Night of the Hunter is one of John Kricfalusi's favorite films according to his Myspace page.

• In "Beyond the Sea", a Season One episode of The X Files, Brad Dourif plays Luther Lee Boggs, a possibly psychic serial killer who has "KISS" and "KILL" tattooed on his knuckles.

• The Simpsons episode "Cape Feare" (1993) features Sideshow Bob with tattooed knuckles; however, "Since he's a cartoon character with only three knuckles, his tattoo reads 'L-U-V' and 'H-Ā-T,' with a macron over the middle 'A,' to get that 'long a' sound." [1] Though the episode is a parody of the 1991 film Cape Fear, the reference in this case is clearly meant to invoke both The Night of the Hunter and Robert Mitchum's portrayal of the antagonist in the original 1962 version of Cape Fear.

• The 1995 Chumbawamba album, Swingin' with Raymond, features album artwork of an old man with LOVE and HATE tattoed across his fingers.

• In Hugh Laurie's 1996 novel The Gun Seller, he mentions a West Ham supporter with "Hate" tattooed on one hand, and "Hate" tattoed on the other.

• The band Murder City Devils, has a song entitled "Left Hand Right Hand" on their 1998 album Empty Bottles, Broken Hearts.

• In House of 1000 Corpses (2003), the homicidal clown Captain Spaulding has "Love" and "Hate" tattooed across his knuckles. The character himself is a reference to Groucho Marx's famous Captain Jeffrey T. Spaulding from Animal Crackers (1930).

• The Appalachian mountain dancer Jesco White has the words "Love" & "Hate" tattooed on his fingers in tribute to the character of the Preacher.

• The professional skateboarder Mike Vallely has the Love/Hate tattoos on his knuckles.

The films of the Coen Brothers contain a number of references to The Night of the Hunter:

• The Man Who Wasn't There features a shot directly inspired by Night of the Hunter, with Jon Polito dead in a car at the bottom of a river, reminiscent of a similar scene involving Shelley Winters.
• In Raising Arizona, the Biker from Hell, Leonard Smalls, has Love and Hate tattooed on his knuckles like Powell. In a scene where Smalls blows up a rabbit with a grenade, the voice over reads, "He was especially hard on the little things ...", a paraphrase of a line spoken by Rachel Cooper, "It's a hard world for little things" during a scene in which an owl sweeps down on a rabbit. In another scene, H.I. says "It's a hard world for little things" after his wife tells him that the baby they kidnapped had a nightmare.
• In The Big Lebowski the Stranger's final monologue includes the line "Yeah, well, the Dude abides. The Dude abides", seemingly a paraphrase of Rachel Cooper's "Children are man at his strongest. They abide. . . . The wind blows, and the rains are cold. Yet they abide. . . . They abide and they endure."
• The Ladykillers. The villain of this film, Professor Goldthwaite H. Dorr, schemes in a basement very similar to the basement where Harry Powell tried to torture the children into revealing the hidden money's location. The main character Mrs. Marva Munson is heard humming the theme of The Night of the Hunter, "Leaning on Jesus (The Everlasting Arms)".

• Bands including Fantômas and Mono Puff have recorded the songs "Lullaby" and "Pretty Fly" from the film's musical score.
• Tony Millionaire drew a Maakies strip based on the lyrics of "Pretty Fly".
• A sample of dialogue "L-O-V-E! You see these fingers, dear hearts? These fingers has veins that run straight to the soul of man. The right hand, friends, the hand of love. Now watch, and I'll show you the story of life." was used by Dreadzone in their 1993 track L.O.V.E.

A 1991 made-for-television version of Night of The Hunter starred Richard Chamberlain as Powell.^[2]

• Callow, Simon: The Night of the Hunter, BFI Film Classics, BFI (British Film Institute) Publishing, 2000. 96 pages.
• Jones, Preston Neal: Heaven and Hell to Play With: The Filming of The Night of the Hunter, Limelight Editions, 2004. 400 pages.

• The Night of the Hunter at the Internet Movie Database
• Night of the Hunter at Rotten Tomatoes
• 500 Night of the Hunter pictures
• Film review at Channel 4 Film (UK)
• Comprehensive analysis of the film by Tim Dirks at The Greatest Films
• Film review by Dennis Schwartz
• Text and Texture: A comparative analysis of The Night of the Hunter, Cape Fear (1962) and Cape Fear (1991) by Harvey O'Brien, 1995
• Roger Ebert's 1996 review
• Article by Margaret Atwood: "Why I Love Night Of The Hunter", in The Guardian (UK), 1999
• Article by Simon Callow: "A magnificent and lonely masterpiece", in The Daily Telegraph (UK), 1999
• Review "Two Amazing Nights with The Night of the Hunter" by Peter Merholz, 2002
• Article in the Guardian by Robert Gitt: "The hidden hunter", about his project of restoring rare outtakes from the film, 2003
• Leonard's Journal - Behind the scenes with a master Film critic Leonard Maltin on Gitt's presentation of the extremely rare footage, 2002
• Movie script of "The Night of the Hunter"

• DVD review with pictures at DVD Beaver
• DVD review by Michael Brooke at DVD Times (UK)
• DVD review at Mondo Digital

v • d • e Charles Laughton
Films	The Night of the Hunter
Screenplays	Sidewalks of London (with Bartlett Cormack, Clemence Dane, Erich Pommer and Tim Whelan)
Productions	Vessel of Wrath