The Night of the Hunter - Lisa's Review

So a 1955 movie set in the 1930s... wonderful.  I'm far from a fan of most older movies.  There are a few wonderful exceptions.  Is this movie amongst them?  In a word - no.

The movie follows a nasty, misogynistic preacher, Rev Harry Powell (played by Robert Mitchum) who just happened to be a murderer on the side.  He has managed to live his life so far completely unhindered as his ill deeds had never been discovered.  He was adored by women and revered by men for his god fearing sermons.  He had a real talent of getting people 'on side' and hiding his repugnant, repellent personality.



Rev Powell shares a cell with Ben Harper (played by Peter Graves) who is awaiting execution for a bank robbery which went wrong and led to the deaths of 2 people.   The money which was stolen was never recovered and the unscrupulous Rev Powell tries his best to find out where the money was hidden.

Having no luck in his questioning of Ben regarding the location of the stolen money, when Ben is executed, he figures that his wife or 2 children must know the secret.  Being a handsome and very convincing man he sets off to woo Bens widowed wife Willa (played by Shelley Winters) and win over his 2 children John and Pearl, with the intention to find the money.

I won't go into the storyline any further, but I will say that we see both sides of Rev Powell as the story plays out.  The charismatic, decent, and holy minister, who can only strengthen and enrich the community of the new town he has moved to.  This is obviously a surface thinly veiled disguise, hiding the nasty, cruel and downright evil reality beneath the surface.

I was interested to see Robert Mitchum in action as I hadn't had the pleasure before.   I have to say he was excellent in the role.  He was very charismatic and convincing.  However, I did find the entire 'feel' of the movie very dated, very sexist and very dull.  Some of the statements made about women really made me raise an eyebrow.  Obviously I know it was made in the fifties and set in the thirties and we've come a long way, but it still rattled me.

In short, I won't recommend this one as I don't see any reason why a person should watch the movie, asides from Robert Mitchum being in it.  I'm considering this a payoff as one of my alltime favourite movies is next week!!! :)