The Night of the Hunter

The Night of the Hunter is one of those films that is shockingly great. It is not only one of my personal favorite films of all time, but I think, one of the actual best shot ever. Technically, German Expressionism is apparent throughout Night of the Hunter, lines and angles feel like they shouldn't be stopping at the screen, they appear crude and gorgeous. It's one of the best looking pictures ever made. It's also a fantasy, and at a level higher than that which fantasy usually offers. We get shots of the dead underneath the fishing-poles of children, animals who resemble the people in the film in their deviousness, and a seeping fear throughout. The tale is of a preacher (Robert Mitchum) who marries into the decent American family, and shatters them from the inside out. On his left knuckles, he has written: Hate. On his right: Love. The film is about how things can go awry in a nightmarish sense, and then how classically good values can fight that evil. This is apparent within the film with Lillian Gish playing a kindly but stern matron figure. There is never any outstanding violence in the film, but the sense that that violence is about to come out, or that it has happened without anyone noticing. THE NIGHT OF THE HUNTER is a superior film.