The Night Of The Hunter (1955)

Set during the depression era of the 1930s, a serial killer (Robert Mitchum) masquerading as a preacher courts lonely widows with money then murders them after marriage. His latest victim is a woman (Shelley Winters) whose husband stole and hid $10,000 before being hanged. She doesn't know where the money is but her young son (Billy Chapin) and daughter (Sally Jane Bruce) do. Based on the novel by Davis Grubb and directed by the actor Charles Laughton, sadly his only film as a director. Shockingly dismissed by both audiences and to a lesser extent critics when it opened, this is a great film. Certainly not without flaws and some weak performances but not to the film's detriment.  It's a film that's not easy to categorize. Part allegory, part noir, part horror but always intense. The often expressionistic cinematography by the great Stanley Cortez (MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS) is stunning. Visually, the children's escape down the river is pure cinemagic and only the walk through the cane fields in I WALKED WITH A ZOMBIE comes even close. And Mitchum in possibly his greatest performance is magnificent here as is Lillian Gish as a bible quoting country woman taking in stray children. As the children, Chapin is good but Sally Jane Bruce is embarrassingly amateurish but after all, she is just 5 years old. The superb score is by Walter Schumann. With Evelyn Varden, James Gleason and Don Beddoe.