THE NIGHT OF THE HUNTER: 4K UHD Blu-ray (UA, Paul Gregory Productions, 1955) Kino Lorber

Orson Welles once suggested all movies should be made ‘innocently,’ the way Adam and Eve discovered and named the animals. Perhaps Charles Laughton took this to heart when preparing his singular attempt at directing The Night of the Hunter (1955), irrefutably, one of the most theatrical and disturbing movies of all time. The crux of the terror Laughton and his cast have wrought stems from the German Expressionist design of the piece – lit and photographed in starkly contrasted B&W using a new Kodak-based, Tri-X negative. But the amplification of that fear derives entirely as this tale is told from the perspective of a child, John Harper (Billy Chapin), unable to convince the more astutely-minded adults that the town’s newest arrival, Harry Powell (Robert Mitchum) masquerading as a preacher, is evil incarnate. Initially, Laughton had hoped to play this distorted villain himself – an idea quashed by United Artists, the studio agreeing to fund and distribute this movie. Their suggestion of Laurence Olivier to fill preacher’s shoes was admonished by Laughton – professional jealousy rearing its ugly head. Or perhaps in Olivier, Laughton recognized something of the homoerotic bent in himself that he, Laughton, had tried so desperately to keep secret from the public. So, with UA’s complicity, Laughton settled on Robert Mitchum whose passion to play the part mirrored Laughton’s own. Director and star fast established a succinct working rapport and the movie, despite its ominous tone, was a congenially-minded labor of love for all concerned.

Laughton, already ailing from the cancer eventually to claim him, had seen his Teflon-coated reputation as an actor’s actor steadily erode through the fifties. While he was still in demand to play supporting character parts, and would continue to do so into the early 1960’s, the real golden years of his illustrious career were behind him. Nevertheless, Laughton was a fascinating raconteur, and an even more engrossing and complex artist of irrefutable quality. As such, he admired and respected talent of which he found Robert Mitchum’s formidable.  Despite the picture’s miniscule budget (even in 1955, the estimate of somewhere between $400,000 and $800,000, was a ripple in the pond), The Night of the Hunter, which Laughton would reference as a nightmare - if told by Mother Goose – stood in stark contrast to all the big and glossy screen spectacles produced that year, Oklahoma!, Cinerama Holiday, Lady and the Tramp, and, To Catch a Thief among them.

The picture’s success squarely rested on performance, and Mitchum’s broad-shouldered, malignant and menacing masculinity in particular. Mitchum’s ‘preacher’ hovers over these proceedings like a relentless gargoyle. In hindsight, the toxic nature of Powell’s warped religiousness must have appealed to Laughton whose homosexuality had been forced into the celluloid closet for decades by conservative zealots, ready to condemn his appetite for other men. Ironically, given the button-down conservatism of the times, Mitchum’s sex appeal had been given a miraculous boost at the movies, as a Hollywood bad boy after his marijuana bust in 1948, adding an underlay of believability to preacher’s deviancy, while maintaining Mitchum’s own veneer of raw animal magnetism. To offset this potent portrayal, Laughton cast Shelly Winters as Willa Harper, the demure and put-upon widow of a convict, Ben (Peter Graves) with whom Powell had done time before Ben was sent to the gallows. As diverse a spate of actresses as Grace Kelly to Agnes Moorhead had vied for the opportunity to play Willa. But Laughton wanted Winters who, by 1955, had built a respectable career as second-string blonde ambition.

The Night of the Hunter is based on a novel by Davis Grubb whom Laughton would turn to, to provide sketches regarding the look of the picture, later adapted for the screen by art director, Hilyard M. Brown and superbly lensed by cinematographer, Stanley Cortez. But the picture’s appeal as a diabolical fairytale noir, to blend the zealous fervor of Southern Baptism with one of the most indelibly demonic movie villains of all time, was owed the craftsmanship of its screenwriter, James Agee. For some years, the rumor has persisted, Grubb was first offered the opportunity to adapt his book for the screen. In fact, Grubb was never considered. Though his novel proved highly cinematic, Agee was the only choice to rework Grubb’s prose for the screen. Nevertheless, Laughton and Agee agreed Agee and Grubb should share a screen credit, with Grubb’s name taking precedence.  And while Grubb would take sole credit in later years for the novel, actually, he had written a thinly veiled account of Harry Powers - a career criminal convicted of murdering two widows. Given the limited budget and skinflint shooting schedule (the picture was shot in just under 6 weeks on meticulously crafted sets at Culver City with additional stock footage used for matte photography), Laughton’s creative verve bent towards a sort of ingenious economization of artistic elements borrowed from the silent cinema.

Learning of Laughton’s passion for D.W. Griffith, and his pre-screening of several of the director’s most indelible works, including The Birth of a Nation (1915) and Intolerance (1916), silent screen legend, Lillian Gish agreed to partake of The Night of the Hunter. For Laughton, Gish embodied a bird-like purity, hearty and steadfast as the matriarch for whom a devout commitment to the Lord is a way of life. Gish who had given her best years before the coming of sound had since grown disenchanted with the talkies and Hollywood’s increasing focus on telling lurid tales. Interesting then, for her to join Laughton on this – arguably, one of the most theatrical and shocking of all films produced in the 1950’s. Like a Greek tragedy, The Night of the Hunter opens with the corruption of innocence (the discovery by children of a brutally murdered widow in a storm cellar). Perhaps even more shocking, the picture ends with the almost Christ-like salvation of their corruptible flesh – alas, never entirely to cleanse the soul from exposure to these tainted entrails of advancing adulthood. We are introduced to two children, John Harper (the superb, Billy Chapin) and his much younger sister, Pearl (Sally Jane Bruce) who, throughout the next 92-mins. must surrender the naivety of youth as fearless crusaders bent, though never broken in their self-preservation.

The children’s father, Ben (Peter Graves) has hidden a small fortune in one of Pearl’s dolls, stolen during an armed robbery. Confiding his secret to John only, Ben is apprehended by police. As he sits on death row, Ben recants the details of his theft to fellow inmate, Harry Powell – a sadist who, upon his release, masquerades as a preacher to get nearer to the children’s mother, Willa. Presenting himself as a model citizen, Harry weds Willa after Ben is hanged, then brainwashes her into believing she is 'unclean' and therefore unworthy of his love. All the while, Powell baits John and Pearl as to the whereabouts of their father's loot. Willa overhears these conversations and gradually begins to suspect Harry's intentions have not been honorable. Harry slits Willa's throat as she prays in bed, then weighs down her body, submersing it in a nearby lake. Next, Powell spreads the rumor, Willa has run off with another man, painting himself as a victim of her infidelity.

Fearful of what may come next, John takes Pearl and the doll. Unable to convince any of the adults, even Willa’s Uncle Birdie Steptoe (James Gleason) - a rummy who eventually discovers Willa’s remains floating beneath the brine – of Powell’s wickedness, John and Pearl run off in the middle of the night, escaping their stepfather’s clutches before arriving at the home of curmudgeonly spinster/social worker, Rachel Cooper (Lillian Gish) whose farm is a refuge for orphans. Powell picks up their trail and hunts John and Pearl down. But Rachel is not about to let anything happen to her latest charges. With shotgun in hand, she wounds Powell, sending for the police to arrest him the next morning. As Powell stands trial and is convicted for Willa's murder, he glowers at John and Pearl who, having endured his tyranny, are now liberated to grow into adulthood, free of his psychotic influence. Our story concludes with Rachel’s direct address to the audience, declaring that 'children' represent mankind at its strongest - "they abide!"

Like a trip through a carnival funhouse, The Night of the Hunter is a paralyzing experience, intermittently tinged with a few light touches to ease or merely intrude on the advancing dread. Laughton’s deeply unhinged vision of childhood distorted by evil is conceived in an almost storybook journey of self-discovery. Yet, as a tale told by Grimm, the movie builds on a singular premise - that evil, as good, is a constant that cannot be avoided, though arguably, may be defeated through blind faith and perseverance. Initially, Laughton was concerned he would not find a child actor, capable of carrying off John Harper’s intensity. He had nothing to fear. Eleven-year-old Billy Chapin, already a veteran of Broadway, movies and TV, came to the role with a startling clairvoyance – his accusatory stares to convey sage critical thinking well beyond his years. Laughton was fascinated by Chapin and admired his intensity. At the time of the theatrical premiere, The Night of the Hunter was fraught with ill-omens to sink its reputation as a truly great work of cinema art. The Legion of Decency gave the picture a “B” rating, citing its stance on religion as ‘objectionable.’ The picture was, in fact, banned in Wyoming.  Unable to come up with a way to successfully market the picture, UA instead elected to dump The Night of the Hunter into theaters as the bottom-half of a double-bill with Not As a Stranger, also starring Robert Mitchum. Quietly to disappear, first from marquees, then, the public consciousness, The Night of the Hunter seemed destined to become a forgotten film with a minor cult following until 1992, when it was adopted into the National Film Registry as a cultural artifact, worthy of preservation. This did much to elevate the picture’s prestige, though ironically not much to create renewable audience interest in it. While Charles Laughton would take immense pride in it to his grave, The Night of the Hunter has since remained his masterful, yet woefully underrated opus magnum – a high testament to its stylistic strengths, Laughton’s direction, and Robert Mitchum’s centrally driven, cruel and demonically purposed performance.

Kino Lorber’s newly minted 4K remaster of The Night of the Hunter, sourced from an original 35mm negative, is cause to rejoice. Not only does it restore the deeply saturated black levels inherent in Tri-X film stock from this vintage, but in overall clarity, depth and detail, this disc easily bests the tired Blu-ray from Criterion. The image here is deep, with inky blacks that never crush. Despite the dark tones, fine detail rushes to the forefront in skin, hair and background details. This is an exemplary 4K effort, surely to rate as ‘reference quality’ for a vintage B&W movie. Kino has cleaned up the DTS 2.0 mono audio. There are subtler differences, with quiescent moments experiencing no hiss or pop, and the more bombastic scenes raging across the front channels. Really good stuff here!  We get an audio commentary from novelist/critic, Tim Lucas - meandering, to a fault, an isolated score and SFX track, and several, all-too-brief featurettes: the first, with filmmaker, Ernest Dickerson’s reflections, the others, with actress, Kathy Garver and artist, Joe Coleman leaving their thoughts behind. We also get a theatrical trailer. Do not chuck your old Criterion set just yet because virtually none of the wonderful extras that accompanied it have found their way here. The Criterion contained a half-hour making of with a multitude of reflections from scholars and picture-makers alike, plus, on a separate disc, the nearly 2 ½ hr. documentary, 'Charles Laughton Directs' - an overwhelming treasure trove of stills, photography and other rare outtakes. Bottom line: you will need to own 2 copies of The Night of the Hunter to fully appreciate its greatness: Kino’s, for the pluperfect 4K master, and Criterion’s for the formidable bonus content. Judge and buy accordingly.

FILM RATING (out of 5 - 5 being the best)

4

VIDEO/AUDIO

Kino 4K – 5+

Criterion Blu-ray  3.5

EXTRAS

Kino 2

Criterion 4