The underwater scene is one of the best, scariest and poetical in the history of filmmaking. And the movie itself the creepiest fairy tale ever seen on the screen, it is such a shame Laughton never directed another movie in his career.
The way this film is framed & lit there's nothing else like it. A beautifully shot & haunting masterpiece. My favourite film of the 50's. Shame it was Laughton's only directorial offering but what an incredible one it was.
I read that critics hated it upon its release. They really didn’t ‘get it’ back then. He was too ahead of his time. Apparently his disappointment over its reception is the reason he stopped making movies.
@@happydayz7857 yeah, heard similar tales myself... I first saw it when i was 8yrs old in the mid eighties ... and even i knew, i had just seen something special... Each year i try to get a watch in... Just unforgettable and amazing on every level that counts for me
this was Lillian Gish ...famous Silent Movie Actress had worked extensively with D. W. Griffith...a director whose work Laughton had studied extensively prior to directing this movie.
Absolutely ...I would also like to point out Lee Remick & Joan Crowford's characters in experiment in terror(1962) & Mildred Pierce (1945) respectively were also very strong female characters.The things their characters do in those movies is amazing to witness...
@@oscarsalesgirl296 yeah that's obvious but I'm not sure that old womans husband was still around to carry the gun and protect. Also, this is a movie, not real life.
American gothic masterpiece. Although Mitchum and Winters usually get the well-deserved accolades, the little boy actor Billy Chapin was fantastic and really helped make the film. He was not precious or cutesy but very realistic. Wish that Laughton directed more films.
I remember coming across this movie on tv, decades ago, when I was in my twenties. Without any idea what it was. It had already begun, perhaps 20 minutes, but I was hooked from the first second. I just couldn’t believe how modern it was! As if David Lynch or Tim Burton had been transported to the fifties. What a shame it is that Laughton never got the appreciation for it he so richly deserved. What other movies would he have made? I think six or seven films like that in the fifties and sixties would probably have changed film history.
When she starts harmonizing “Leaning on the Everlasting Cross” with him, i thought she is decisively letting him know she’s going to use the shotgun. Excellent direction!!! Cool note: My 26yr old son sent this video to me🙂 Im glad he likes great direction & shared this one. 👍🏼
When Lillian Gish began singing, she sings the full song. Not like Robert's preacher. This is truly a display between the battle of good and evil. The context of the preacher avoiding saying Jesus yet singing this song is just chilling.
One of the ten most haunting, beautiful and ominous black and white movies ever made. Dreadful, gorgeous, menacing, all coalesced, into this enchanting, unique, cinematic jewel.
Robert Mitchum's character in "Night of the Hunter" is like his character in "Cape Fear": charming and menacing. And his rage/scream in the clip above when he tries to grab the row boat is just like his rage/incoherent scream in the scene from "Cape Fear" when he's wrestling in the river with Gregory Peck and drowns.
This movie is pure excellency of filmmaking: the cinematography, the script, the acting, everything is just impeccable. One of the most incredible films i've watched, it's of immense importance for filming history. Every film lovers has to watch this masterpiece.
1:04 "The hair floating in the water...I've been trying to do that for 25 years." I must rewatch The Shape Of Water. I remember the initial scene within the floating furniture in the water filled apartment piquing my interest.
I saw this film when it was first released in the UK and never forgot it. .Bought it recently on DVD and just showed it to a much younger friend ,who of course is not used to this style of film .I have to be careful in what I show ,as no way do I want to get a negative view .The difficulty is that the film stands alone ,there is really little to compare it with She asked anxiously if it was horror, so I explained that just as in the film The Green Mile, which I knew she liked, there were unpleasant scenes but these were necessary to show how good and evil conflict and how ,eventually the baddie gets his comeupance. After this she watched it and was very impressed with it. "I really enjoyed it" she exclaimed .
Guillermo del Toro expressed interest in directing The Wolverine, being a fan of the Japanese saga in the "Wolverine" comics. He met with James Gianopulos and Hugh Jackman about directing, but ultimately decided he did not wish to spend two to three years of his life working on the movie.
Del Toro nails something in this that explains why "Night of the Hunter" and "Shadow of a Doubt" have been important to me for so long - although I'm not an immigrant nor rotund (and I've been actually been considered quite attractive (at least in years past)), I've been able to experience the shadow side of America and have regularly felt that I didn't belong in the world (and I would say that has quadruple in our current era). I also like del Toro's analysis of Laughton finding the beauty in the within the horror. Night of the Hunter was a very personal film and it's deeply sad that it was beyond the critics and public at the time which devastated him so that he never made another movie. Again I think del Toro nails it.
Chilling. Gives me shivers. And yet it's beautiful. Laughton was a genius as an actor AND director. Unfortunately, the film flopped when it came out, but then became a cult classic. Now it's considered one of the most important American film. Guillermo del Toro is spot on, except that it's pronunced Lawton not Laffton or Loffton.
I feel like the Coen brothers took allot from this movie. The everlasting arms song is played in True Grit. The woman holding the gun waiting for Mitchums character is like Llewelyn Moss is waiting for Anton Chigurh in No Country for Old men. The dead woman in the water is payed homage to in The Man who Wasn’t there when the character played by John Politos body is found. The last story in the Ballad of Buster Scruggs seems to visually draw influence from this movie. The dude abides is taken from the movie as well.
My brother -- a Gay man! -- and I once watched this flick together and we laughed at the absurdity of The Preacher when he vocalizes like a beast that he is, while still very aware of the monstrosity that was lurking beneath that veneer of respectability. The ultimate Hollywood Monster!!! The only film Charles Laughton ever directed; the You-alls of 'merica didn't understand it. Europeans did!!!
i wish Ruby wouldn't say she still love him even after it's revealed that he's a murderer. that scene really ruins the whole mood that's been built up. i don't like her character it pisses me off
@@arimas1977 I agree with you, arimas. Today's filmmakers should rediscover the art of building up tension, of letting the imagination of the audience (and not their own) run wild, of creating the right ambiance.
Impulse Films he's an amazing talker isn't he? To be honest, apart from Pans Labyrinth (haven't seen Shape of Water yet), I've found most of his other stuff just average, but every time I hear him talk I warm to him. Very knowledgeable and articulate. And this in his second language.
I don't know what it is, maybe the expression on his face, but he doesn't come across like an inaccessable celebrity, he seems like a kindhearted manchild - and I mean that in a good way.
I love this movie. When I taught Film Appreciation, I showed this movie to my students. Their reactions are some of my favorite memories of my teaching career. They immediately engaged with it, a B&W movie from 1955.
I’m teaching a film appreciation class right now! I love this film but wonder if it might be a bit much to show my seventh and eighth graders. What age did you show it to?
@@christianbravo9031 I show this film to 12th graders regularly. They have a very divisive reaction; some of them love it, but others can't get past the black and white and the surreal aspects. Seventh and eighth might be a bit young to truly appreciate it... but I do find that lot of kids get pretty hooked during the middle of the film where Mitchum is firmly planted in the household and is actively threatening the kids. I love witnessing the shock of the students with both the murder and the subsequent underwater scene. The Netflix series Wednesday is a good hook - kids seem to "get it" when I explain that Tim Burton is inspired by German expressionism in the same way this one is.
“My soul is humble when I see the way little ones accept their lot. Lord save little children. The wind blows and rains are cold, yet they abide. They abide and they endure.” - Closing scene of The Night of the Hunter
I absolutely love this movie. Freaks me out every time. I already know what happens But Scary .Scary Mitchum is one of my favorite actors Scary in original Cape Fear too Lillian Gish is so strong so righteous
One of the most haunting & surreal films ever made. The word "classic" gets thrown around all too often, especially with films from around this era, but with *The Night Of The Hunter* it's deservedly applicable.
After a youth spent appreciating & enjoyng the _horror_ genre as a whole; this movie is altogether something truly _other_ .. I'll never forget how much this film struck me as a child watching this with my family. Such a powerful movie. "Tremendous"
Criterion is now the great archive of cinema Art, making restorations of the highest quality from original negatives and giving these great works of Art the proper context for generations of future academic study and Love of Cinema.
I am SO HAPPY he talked about the hair floating in the water and how surreal and beautiful it is. I feel like that shot gets ignored far too often in these critiques.
This movie's like Disney on acid! He compares Laughton to Hitchock. The only time Hitch directed Laughton (JAMAICA INN), the result was unsuccessful. (Hitch later included Laughton on his list of "hardest things to photograph," along with dogs, babies and method actors!)
Del Toro hit the nail on the head with his outsider view about America's dark side. Leave it to the British to reinterpret America's own hippocras of the haves and have nots! Thanks, Charles Laughton and Alfred Hitchcock 😉
Just watched this much praised 🍿 movie... for me it’s A JUMBLED MESS!!! Seriously it doesn’t know what it wants to be??! IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE? A musical?? CAPE FEAR??? Jumbled mess!!!!!
Unfortunately this movie did not get the accolades that it deserved upon its release. Poor Charles Laughton was a bit defeated because nobody appreciated the absolute excellence of this movie during his lifetime.
Good moovie, weird narrative. Mitchem's charatcer is creepy af but he also telegraphs everything he is doing, which allows his prey to escape/plan/cownter his mooves. If he'd just shut the F up he'd have had that moolah! :=8/
I think the movie turns a bit too silly by the last half an hour or so. Like when Mitchum gets shot by the "mother goose", that yell they use three times on a loop as he runs to the barn. So silly. And all that weird aftermath with the trial and the lynching mob, and the teen girl who is in love with Mitchum's character after just one scene together.
