film

In a classic case of the injustice of being unappreciated in one's own time, Charles Laughton never directed another feature film after The Night of the Hunter, so wounded was he by its critical and commercial failure in its release in 1955. As sure as night follows day, the film, which was adapted by the legendary film critic James Agee from the 1953 book of the same name by Davis Grubb, has been thoroughly reappraised as a complex, classic chiller in the years since. Agee's screenwriting career was curtailed by his rampant alcoholism, and his work on this film and The African Queen (1951) suggest that his death at age 45 shortly before The Night of the Hunter's release was a great loss to the art of filmmaking.

Robert Mitchum puts in a terrifyingly brilliant performance as Harry Powell, a psychopathic bogus preacher turned serial killer, grifter and thief. A ghastly swirl of charisma and cruelty, Powell's status as a classic bogeyman is ramped up by scenes in which he is silhouetted against the night sky and sings hauntingly in the dark, creating dread and otherworldly horror by the barrowload.