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The Night of the Hunter (1955) 8.1
Ratings:
8.1/10 from 59,393 users
Metascore: 99/100
Reviews: 361 user | 168 critic | 8 from Metacritic.com A religious fanatic marries a gullible widow whose young children are reluctant to tell him where their real daddy hid $10,000 he'd stolen in a robbery. |
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Cast
| Complete credited cast: | |||
| Robert Mitchum | ... | ||
| Shelley Winters | ... | ||
| Lillian Gish | ... | ||
| James Gleason | ... | ||
 |
Evelyn Varden | ... | |
| Peter Graves | ... | ||
| Don Beddoe | ... | ||
| Billy Chapin | ... | ||
|
|
Sally Jane Bruce | ... | |
|
|
Gloria Castillo | ... |
Ruby
(as Gloria Castilo)
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| Rest of cast listed alphabetically: | |||
|
|
Emmett Lynn | ... |
Birdie Steptoe
(scenes deleted)
|
Edit
Plot Summary
|
Plot Synopsis
Storyline
It's the Great Depression. In the process of robbing a bank of $10,000, Ben Harper kills two people. Before he is captured, he is able to convince his adolescent son John and his daughter Pearl not to tell anyone, including their mother Willa, where he hid the money, namely in Pearl's favorite toy, a doll that she carries everywhere with her. Ben, who is captured, tried and convicted, is sentenced to death. But before he is executed, Ben is in the state penitentiary with a cell mate, a man by the name of Harry Powell, a self-professed man of the cloth, who is really a con man and murderer, swindling lonely women, primarily rich widows, of their money before he kills them. Harry does whatever he can, unsuccessfully, to find out the location of the $10,000 from Ben. After Ben's execution, Harry decides that Willa will be his next mark, he figuring that someone in the family knowing where the money is. Despite vowing not to get remarried, Willa ends up being easy prey for Harry's outward... Written by Huggo
Taglines:
The Hands Of ROBERT MITCHUM in "The Night of the Hunter" See more »Parents Guide:
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Details
Country:
USALanguage:
EnglishRelease Date:
24 November 1955 (Argentina) See more »Also Known As:
Die Nacht des Jägers See more »Filming Locations:
CBS Studio Center - 4024 Radford Avenue, Studio City, Los Angeles, California, USA See more »Box Office
Budget:
$795,000 (estimated)Company Credits
Show detailed
company contact information
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IMDbPro »
Technical Specs
Runtime:
Sound Mix:
Mono (Western Electric Recording)Color:
Black and WhiteAspect Ratio:
1.66 : 1
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Rev. Harry Powell: [singing] Leaning... leaning... safe and secure from all alarms. Leaning... leaning... leaning on the everlasting arms.
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(1887) (uncredited)
Music by Anthony J. Showalter
Text by Elisha A. Hoffman
Sung a cappella by Robert Mitchum often
Also sung a cappella by Lillian Gish
See more »
Did You Know?
Trivia
According to writer Lee Server in his biography, "Robert Mitchum: Baby, I Don't Care", Robert Mitchum's "devotion to Charles Laughton and the project had begun to fade by the final week of the thirty-six-day shoot. [Producer Paul] Gregory: "Laughton had a keen thing for Mitchum, and Mitchum said all this sh*t about how he loved Charles, but he was on drugs, drunk, and what have you, and there were times when Charles couldn't get him in front of the camera. He put us through a lot of hell on that. The picture went two hundred thousand dollars over budget." To Gregory, Mitchum at times seemed uncomfortably like the character he was playing. "He was a charmer. An evil son of a bitch with a lot of charm. Mitch sort of scared me, to tell you the truth. I was always on guard. He was often in a state, and you never knew what he would do next. He would be drunk or in a fight with this flunky he kept around, and kicking him all over the place. I came from the world of the theatre and I had never seen anyone quite like this." See more »Goofs
(at around 1h 3 mins) When John and Pearl are in the barn at dusk, there is a time-lapse sequence of the crescent moon rising. A crescent moon shortly after sunset is always setting and the lit portion should be tilted toward the point where the sun has recently set. See more »Quotes
[repeated line]Rev. Harry Powell: [singing] Leaning... leaning... safe and secure from all alarms. Leaning... leaning... leaning on the everlasting arms.
See more »
Soundtracks
Leaning on the Everlasting Arms(1887) (uncredited)
Music by Anthony J. Showalter
Text by Elisha A. Hoffman
Sung a cappella by Robert Mitchum often
Also sung a cappella by Lillian Gish
See more »
'The Night Of The Hunter' is recognized by most critics and hard core film buffs as one of the most extraordinary movies ever made, but sadly it's still frequently overlooked by the many movie fans, probably because it's so difficult to categorize. Yes, it's a thriller but it's also a child's nightmare. A Noir but also a fable. Robert Mitchum gives one of his very best performances as Harry Powell, the charming but evil preacher with "love" tattooed on one hand, "hate" on the other. Powell is one of the most memorable screen villains of all time, and 'The Night Of The Hunter' is worth watching just for Mitchum, who is mesmerizing. Shelley Winters is surprisingly effective as the widow Powell woos, Peter Graves has a small role at the beginning as her first husband, and Lillian Gish plays the saintly Ms. Cooper, guardian of unwanted children. Because this movie isn't set in isn't the "real world" many viewers don't know exactly how to react to it. Charles Laughton's small town America is a stylized, dreamlike place, in some ways not unlike David Lynch's twisted world depicted in 'Blue Velvet' and 'Twin Peaks'. It also reminds me of Flannery O'Connor's Gothic South in her classic novels 'Wise Blood' and 'The Violent Bear It Away'. Some of the scenes involving Powell menacing Winters' children deliberately invoke James Whale's 'Frankenstein', and the sequence depicting the children's journey down the river is charming but blatantly artificial. While I'm a big fan of "outsider" film makers like Russ Meyer, Coffin Joe and Alejandro Jodorowsky, I also greatly admire those who work within the system but still manage to subvert Hollywood with doses of surrealism. I'm thinking of movies such as 'Kiss Me Deadly', 'Shock Corridor' and 'The Manchurian Candidate'. Each of these films are unique but they also remind me of each other and of 'The Night Of The Hunter'. I highly recommend them all and wish that there were a lot more movies like them today. 'The Night Of The Hunter' is essential viewing for anybody interested in American movies!