Rating: 
Summary: breathtaking experience
Review: The more I think about this movie the more complicated it seems to me. I think this movie is not only ahead of its time, but ahead of our time also. Just like 2001: A Space Odyssey
Rating: 
Summary: Doesn't he ever sleep?
Review: Well, now I know where Spike Lee sampled the Love/Hate story for Radio Raheem in Do the Right Thing. It's cool how Mitchum's character successfully demonstrates the tale of love vs hate the first time, but Lillian Gish's reaction to Mitchum's second attempt is on the money, sonny.The DVD notes how Mitchum was the intermediary between the director and the child actors. Supposedly he brought out the best of their performances. But guess what...their performances (...were bad)! Ok, the boy was half-decent overall, but the girl was damn annoying...not realistically annoying, or "that's how it was in them times" annoying, but plain "I'm a Hollywood brat" annoying. No Scout or Jem here.
Rating: 
Summary: Disjointed at best
Review: While the introduction set an interesting feel to this so called 'gem', a combination of very sporatic acting, somewhat comical (and irritating) circumstances and an overall slide towards complete confusion near the end of the movie quickly brought it from classic to... mildly entertaining. And that only because of scenes such as Mitchum running up the stairs in slow motion after a pair of ridiculously slow (and mind-numbingly stupid) children and Mitchum's wife's utterly disjointed acting that should only be found in an adolescent's amateur school film. In fact, it's almost as if the first half of the movie was directed by one 'specializing' in thrillers while whoever did the other half was looking to convert the already messy film into melo-dramatic drivel. Perhaps I missed something that others seem to have loved about the film, but when my mother laughs out loud at a flick meant to be serious (something she did only once before while watching a Dr. Who episode) there must be something horribly wrong with it.
Rating:
Summary: Masterpiece which stretches realism to a terrifying extreme
Review: Directed by Charles Laughton from a screenplay by James Agee, "Night of the Hunter" was hated by critics and bombed at the box office when it was released in 1955. Now, however, it is considered a classic masterpiece, one which Roger Ebert calls "the greatest of all American films." Starring Robert Mitchum as a psychopathic preacher in relentless pursuit of two children who possess their dead father's stolen fortune, the suspense starts in the very first frame as Lillian Gish, cast as an elderly woman who later shelters the children, reads prophetic biblical verses aloud. This sets the weirdly expressionistic tone of the film, which takes place in a small town on a riverbank some time during the depression. Shelly Winters is cast as the young widow whose husband has just been hanged for murder. As the trusting mother of the two children Billy Chapin and Sally Jane Bruce, she soon becomes one of the reverend's many victims. There's a bit of comic relief introduced with a nosey neighbor who hasn't a clue about how treacherous Mitchum really is; but otherwise, the tension is almost unbearable throughout. Filmed in black and white, the cinematography by Stanley Cortez is nothing short of brilliant. He knew just when to use natural elements such as frogs and owls to set the scenes. And his shots of Mitchum's shadow falling across the wall of the children's bedroom was great, as was his shot of the elderly Gish in a pose evocative of Whistler's Mother. The acting was excellent and I'm shocked that there was not even one nomination for an award of any kind. I watched this video in a kind of daze of my own as the tension and suspense kept mounting. And just when I thought I knew where the story was going, there would be another twist. It seemed to take realism and stretch it to its extreme, and the feeling I had throughout was that of a rubber band about to pop. It's rare I get so involved in watching a video. One thing I know for sure is that I will never forget this film. Highly recommended. But be prepared to be scared.
Rating:
Summary: "Don't he ever sleep?"
Review: This movie is definitely one of Mitchum's best, in sharp contrast to most of his other films with the exception of Cape Fear. The music is hauntingly beautiful, and adds much to the surrealistic look of the film. The little boy who plays John is a treat to watch, and Lillian Gish is always a delight. The scene that shows the mother underwater with her hair flowing in the current is particularly frightening, and certainly hard to forget after you've turned your lights out.
Rating:
Summary: Classic thriller
Review: A truly haunting film in which a brother and sister are imperiled by a psychopathic predator who wants to retrieve the money hidden by their late father. The terror of the situation derives from their total helplessness as Robert Mitchum, expertly preying on their mother's weaknesses, insinuates himself into their home. Shelley Winter's fate provides one of the most extraordinary shots I have ever seen in a film. Ultimately, the children are forced to flee their home and their nightmarish journey down river is very well shot. Throughout the film, the children are at the mercy of their surroundings. The three parts of the story (the destruction of the children's home, their flight, and their rescue) each have a distinctive look and feel.
Rating:
Summary: A Triumph
Review: This movie could have fallen apart in so many places, crafted as it is from many diverse parts. Expressionism vs. naturalism, fable vs. social commentary, dream vs. reality, convention vs. experiment. Yet somehow these disparate elements not only hold together, they soar together, into film making heights. I'm almost tempted to say miraculously so, because on paper such opposing styles would seem to resist any kind of meaningful synthesis. Yet there it is, on the screen, an almost seamless work of movie-making art. After 61 reviews - a testament to Hunter's mesmerizing effect - there is little left to say. Except to observe that if the film's brain is Director Laughton, and its eyes Stanley Cortez, then its heart (which is considerable) comes from screen writer James Agee. Literary conscience of the Great Depression, Agee makes of this modern day fairy tale a moving tribute to children of all times who have had to struggle against forces so much bigger and more knowing than themselves. Cast adrift in an alien world, they can only hope for the best, which amounts to trusting in the presence somewhere of a benevolent force to protect them. John and Pearl are lucky. Other children as Agee well knew are not so lucky. In an odd way, this is the conscionable movie about spiritual compassion that Hollywood always wanted to make, but instead could only have been made by accident. Too bad this neglected masterpiece was not so recognized during Laughton's lifetime.
Rating:
Summary: Mommy there's a preacher in my room and he has a knife!
Review: Remember growing up as a child how every shadow and noise would send you flying from your room and into your parents bed! Or how you swore someone was lurking in the shadows of your house when you arose in the middle of the night! Well Night OF The Hunter plays on those fears and ups the ante about 1,000 notches! Laughton's only film as a director is full of frightening shadows and an almost dead like performance by Robert Mitchum he inhabits the spirits of every single thing that you were ever afraid of! His drowsy eyes seem to be hiding an underlined motive of torture for you or the people who he deems not worthy of his "good book"! For you see, in this film Mitchumm is a preacher who wants his dead cell mates hidden cash so bad he marries the dead cell mates widow and tires to befriend the children! Laughton also had the sense to cast Shelly Winters who every woman looks could easily double as anyone's mother! The fear factor in this film is so high and the visuals are just stunning Laughton makes death almost romantic! The vision of Winter's body in the bottom of the lake is one of complete beauty! He paints the fear in stark contrast and sharp angles allowing the utmost response from the viewer! The complete opposites of images makes for an elevator ride of emotions and also makes you think twice about what your local preacher does in his spare time!
Rating:
Summary: A Child's Worst Nightmare
Review: This exceptional, unique classic film, the sole directorial effort by Charles Laughton, presents the world from a child's perspective and as a child's worst nightmare. A menacing, psycopathic adult has all the other adults around him fooled as to his true nature....with only he AND the child knowing what he really is and what he is capable of....and he is after the child (children). Many have remarked on the German expressionist cinema influence on the the look of the film. To me, Laughton and his cinematographer Stanley Cortez created the exaggerations and frights of childhood...of the fairy tale and the Boogie Man and the things that go bump in the night. It has a very real/unreal texture to all of it. Graphic and then dreamlike. Mitchum's performance treads a thin line between reality and nightmare as well, almost bordering on self-parody, he exaggerates just enough to be likewise frightenly real yet unreal. Look at the scene in the cellar with his stentorian overboard "Git down those stairs thar" followed by his truly frightening Abraham-like threat to John then hilarity and fright mixed at the revelation of the doll and the children's escape. It is a masterfully complex performance throughout. Arguably Mitchum's best. All the adults fail John and his little sister Pearl and they take to the river for escape eventually to be pulled from the rushes and saved by a truly good person, Lillian Gish, who's faith isn't of the loud and demonstrable kind, but of the deep and practical and living kind. She's marvelous. The film has a multitude of unforgettable scenes and moments. My personal favorites: Mitchum waist deep in water watching the children just slipping out of his grasp and howling like a banshee in rage and frustration; John seeing the silhouette of Mitchum riding across the horizon singing "Leaning" and plainively wondering "Don't he never sleep?"; the look on Mitchum's face when staring down the wrong end of Gish's 12 guage shotgun; and, of course, who will ever forget Shelley Winters, trussed up with a long black line under her jaw "like a second mouth" in the car with her hair weaving gently with the river seagrass. Mesmermizing, hypnotic, moody, with unexpected humor and some observations as to religion, both that feigned and used to deceive and debase, and that truly felt and practiced as deep spiritual solace. Simply a great movie. A Classic.
Rating:
Summary: Mitchum and Laughton are a match made in heaven
Review: Simply one of the scariest films ever made -- both for what you see and what's implied. Mitchum's Preacher is one of the best personifications of evil ever captured on film. The sets -- oddly reminiscent of German Expressionism -- give it a unique, artistic quality. Too bad Laughton took the poor response from audiences of the era as a sign he fold his director's chair. The underwater shot -- I'm not giving it away! -- will stick with you forever.
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