The Night of the Hunter (1955)'s comments

Do you want to let us know what you think? Just login, after which you will be redirected back here and you can leave your comments.

goellnerd

Commenting to second ckane7's comment because upvoting it once was not enough.

1 year 6 months ago

Limbesdautomne

A wolf lurks at night, but no panic, Grandmother is here. Good as Gish, she hunts the Bad.

Read more in French on La Saveur des goûts amers.

6 years 4 months ago

PrinceJax

It really does play out like a nightmare and a religious fever dream. It's carefully and purposefully steeped in elements of old folktales: the houses, spoiler

, the animals, the lullaby type songs and the near magical atmosphere in some scenes, + spoiler

. As such, the characters are archetypal; everyone around John is shrill voiced, naive, fanatical and blind and are often grossly exaggerated. Mitchum is to thank in large part for the films success, he is charm and evil personified - anyone less capable at perfecting his role would have ruined the film tbh. So needless to say...loved it. Makes me feel awful for Laughton though, who received a pretty frigid response to this, meanwhile it's a masterpiece of film making!!

7 years 1 month ago

essaywhu

Some here are complaining about bad acting and some here are explaining this away with the opinion that the actors are merely symbols and while they're partly right, there's a little more to it. The acting is a throwback to silent-era style acting (one of the reasons they chose Lillian Gish in the role of light and good.) If you watch the film with this in mind you begin to see the effect they are trying to achieve.

8 years ago

Lumen

A lot of mixed reviews about this movie. I personally love this movie for many reasons. The first time I saw it I was almost alone in an old small cinema in Toulouse. I think it set the mood right. The place could have been part of the film. There might be some spoilers...
What makes the movie so strong for me is basically the photography, the wonderfull shots, surprising angles, use of light and shadows... The decors are amazing, an ode to (the then already very dated) German expressionists (Murnau, Wiene, Lang...). Some moments are genuinly brilliant: the scary looking love bed, that soon becomes a death bed, the whole enchanting river that Tim Burton would love too much. Details such as the children filmed through a spider web (same kind of shot in Ivan's childhood), the frog and other hunting (or guarding?) animals mixed with a couple of cute bunnies. The appearance of Pearl, who looks more like her rag doll than a real child keeps with her the biggest treasure.
Most criticism seems to be about the acting. While all forms of art have many equally valid genres and standards, the art of acting only seems to have one: realism. And I completely agree that if we expect realistic acting, this movie is terrible. But I think our expectations are more to blame than the film. The acting fits very well in the tradition of, once again, German expressionism. Furthermore, they all seem more dreamlike than we are used to in cinema. The characters are both ridiculous and nightmarish, and nightmares have nothing to do with reality (Mitchum is anyway too good an actor to have such a strange 'off performance' if he didn't do it on purpose).
I think he does a wonderful job, his stiff body seems like a machine that is out of control. His voice that will haunt you, "chiillllldren" and his hunting song "leaning on Jesus" combined with his shadow/silhouette play make him really scary. The switchblade game, the mixing up with the left and right hand when he tries to tell the story once more, the scene just before the murder where he keeps his head tilted to be perfectly two-faced. I know it is all very obvious, but I still think it is incredibly good.
In many ways I have to agree that the movie is dated, profanity and stuff don't shock anybody anymore, and the morality of protecting the children, the fight of good and evil, and watch out for charming speakers are even too much for my grandmother. One thing that did shock me was the song the town kids sang to John and Pearl after the execution of their father "hing-hang-hung". So cruel!
Finally this film offers a curious experience of Americana, horror, comedy, Capra-esque sentimentality and redemption (yuck). I was raised with tales and fables. This film is a wonderful extension!

8 years ago

Groovy09

Completely overrrated IMO. However, I can still appreciate it for it's influence, amazing cinematography and Robert Mitchum's performance but to me it is one of those 'classic films' that are to much trapped in the timeperiod that it was made and has just not aged well.

So in my mind not a classic, but an important film nonetheless in terms of influence.

8 years 5 months ago

ckane7

I'll never ever be able to understand the unremittingly harsh backlash this movie receives.
Take a movie like "Interstellar" with such nauseatingly lachrymose lines of dialogue like: "Love is the one thing we're capable of perceiving that transcends time and space," and everyone ejaculates semen buckshot in their pants and never questions its authenticity but take a movie with some of the most stark and poetic photography ever and some of the most unforgettable scenes and characters and everyone thumbs their noses at it like they have some kind of axe to grind.
Truly, truly disheartening...

8 years 8 months ago

ReVision

The cinematography is just great. Every scene is beautifully created and shot. Fantastic job on the camerawork and the lighting is stunning.

The scene in the boat where the girl is singing, was my absolute favorite. Perfect in every way!

Also Robert Mitchum delivers a solid performance.

9 years 5 months ago

stexdo

Fantastic lighting, surreal sets and Mitchum is an impressive villain. Great!

10 years ago

LiquidSplitter

Good movie, but the cheesy commentary by Gish at the end and the beginning kinda ruined it for me.

10 years 1 month ago

Monteyn

Stunning cinematography and synopsis, just plain bad acting.

10 years 5 months ago

mathiasa

stunning lights.

10 years 10 months ago

Adamov10

great film 8/10

10 years 11 months ago

juanittomx

OMG! really folks? you don't see a movie for the genre.. you just see the movie and that's it. If you like it or not depends on your point of view and that's respectable. You don't expect nothing and you will be less frustrated. Enjoy the magic of cinema. I kind a like it, somehow it resemblance me a "it's a wonderful world." Yes the acting wasn't any good but for the story I found it fine. The one remarkable thing its the direction and the photography is quite beautiful!

10 years 11 months ago

TalkingElvish

Amazing how many people came to this film expecting it to be 'realistic' or representative of a genre. From the cheesy performances throughout, to the unrealistic yet beautiful art direction and cinematography this is a fable or dream writ large, and the logic operates as such. This film was intended to explore the plight of the innocent in the depression and examine the lengths people would go to for money. The actors are playing caricatures and they operate to forward the story. Perhaps the real stories of the depression seemed too heavy and polarising to explore with the levity and artfulness that Laughton wanted. This is a masterful work that achieves far more than it ever intended to.

10 years 11 months ago