Noir November: The Night Of The Hunter (1955)

Let me start with a sentence that some may view as slightly contentious. I've never viewed The Night Of The Hunter as a flawless classic. It's a fantastic film, certainly, and an absolutely stunning work of art, but there are just too many minor niggles that stop it from being a perfect movie experience, in my view. The child actors aren't the best, especially in the first half of the movie, there are a number of moments that don't feel right, even within the fairytale construction of the film, and the end coda is a clumsy way of sending viewers away without too many troubles plaguing their thoughts.

Once everyone has stopped scowling at me for that opening paragraph we can move swiftly along. Trust me, the rest of this review is pretty glowing, which is why I wanted to get those negative comments out of the way right at the beginning (like ripping off a band-aid).

A man (Peter Graves) commits a robbery, killing two men in the process, and gets home to his two children (John, played by Billy Chapin, and the younger Pearl, played by Sally Jane Bruce) just before the authorities catch up to him. He doesn't have much time, but he's able to hide the stolen loot and swear the kids to secrecy. While spending time in prison, awaiting his execution, the criminal lets slip one or two words in his sleep that give his cellmate, a "preacher" named Harry Powell (Robert Mitchum), the seed of an idea. When released, Powell heads out to befriend Graves' widow (Shelley Winters), thinking that he can find out where that money was put. If only things were that easy. She really has no idea where the money is, but it's not long until Powell realises that the kids might. And so begins a battle of wills between one mean sonofabitch and two children who want to keep a promise that they made to their father.

The one and only movie directed by Charles Laughton alone (although he directed some scenes in The Man On The Eiffel Tower),The Night Of The Hunter takes a number of separate elements that shouldn't work and brings them together to make something truly beautiful and haunting. More a series of gorgeous tableaux than traditional movie moments, light and shadow are controlled to illustrate this twisted Grimm-like story in a way not unlike shadow puppet theatre, or even deceptively simple illustrations in a book for children (the kind that hide horrible details in the background, available to all who look closely enough). A lot of praise must go to cinematographer Stanley Cortez for the overall look of the thing.

Adapted from the novel by Davis Grubb, the screenplay by James Agee is uneven, yet full of a number of quotable moments. Laughton helped to whip the script into final shape, but this is also a film in which the words are given more import by the actors speaking them, and the context of each line.

So let me get back to those actors. I'm not going to spend too much time discussing the supporting cast, although Lillian Gish, Evelyn Varden, Don Beddoe, James Gleason and the aforementioned Graves all do just fine, and I'm not going to discuss the kids either, who do much better when reacting than they do when trying to simply act. Winters is very good, especially considering that her role is perhaps the most difficult one to get right. She's a caring mother, yet also a woman needing comfort. She begins to be changed by Powell as soon as they start a relationship together, and although that passage of time is slightly rushed it still remains fairly convincing, mainly thanks to the performance from Winters. But the film belongs to Mitchum, clearly revelling in a turn that could easily be argued as the best in his entire career. Whether he's explaining his LOVE/HATE tattoos, charming people with lies and tales of morality, or just threatening small children without a second thought, he's consistently great, and certainly one of the greatest onscreen villains in cinema history.

There are many people who will give this movie the extra point that I have denied it. While I myself hold off from classifying it as an outright flawless classic, it's hard to argue too strenuously against those that do. Whether you like, love, or REALLY love it, this is a film that fully deserves the reputation it has gained over the years.

9/10

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The Birth Of A Nation (1915)

Also known as - Film number three in that 1001 Movies To See Before You Die list. Getting there, slowly but surely.

For anyone interested, it's also available to watch here for free.

It appears on many lists, from lists that contain the movies that you must see to lists of the greatest movies of all time to lists of the most controversial movies ever made. Yes, it would seem that The Birth Of A Nation is the film that must make any selection of movies being chosen to represent the art and development of cinema. There's a very good reason for that. The technical work on display and the sheer scope of the thing is so impressive that the film is regarded as the birth of modern cinema as we know it.

Sadly, the technical accomplishment of the movie has always been overshadowed by the major racism of the content. The film skims over the American Civil War, the assassination of Lincoln and a number of other key moments en route to explaining the birth of the Ku Klux Klan and then showing them as white do-gooders trying to right many wrongs after seeing racial equality go too far and suffering at the hands of their black neighbours and peers.

Mind you, considering that it's based on a book called "The Clansman" by Thomas Dixon (with elements of another novel he wrote entitled "The Leopard's Spots") then I don't think anyone could be all that surprised by the final result.

Directed by D. W. Griffith, the other main point to tell you about the movie is that it's quite dull. It's less lively and energetic than earlier efforts because the sprawling nature of the material and the scale of the story is put over to the audience in a number of set-pieces that often lack context and/or any excitement. And almost every scene is prefaced by the title card telling you what you're about to see. I was reminded of my first time reading "The Coral Island" when I was a young lad. I loved it when I first read it and I still love it now but it was the first time that I'd ever read something that gave a small description of events beneath each chapter heading. Notes can be welcome as a precursor to the main event but there were times in The Birth Of A Nation when the title card simply described the scene being shown immediately after it.

Lillian Gish and Mae Marsh are the main starlets onscreen but Ralph Lewis looks like a black and white Mickey Rourke in his role as Hon. Austin Stoneman, which makes for unintended amusement, and George Siegmann plays the scheming Silas Lynch.

I'm sure many people will roll their eyes at my rating of this movie and accuse me of being a heathen who cannot appreciate the landmarks of cinema. Well, I can appreciate the landmarks of cinema. That's why I watched this one and why I have gone for, in my view, a rating that exactly reflects my views of the good and bad aspects of the film.

5/10

http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Birth-Of-Nation-DVD/dp/B00004UF0A/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1347573318&sr=8-1