87 - The Night of the Hunter

    A pair of young kids are hiding a stash of $10,000 that their father stole.  A preacher marries their mother in his effort to recover the money.

    I watched Criterion's Blu-ray of this release, and the film quality hasn't aged too well, but I suppose that's to be expected of a movie from 1955.

    There are easy things to evaluate; it's a technically very well done movie.  There are plenty of very memorable shots that look fantastic.  The performances are uniformly great.  The story itself is fairly unpredictable.

    On the back of the box, Criterion described the movie as being like a Grimm story.  That is remarkably accurate.  There's death, a compelling villain, who sometimes appears normal, and other times, monstrous.  We have orphaned children, who find a safe haven.

    The religious tones of the movie are fascinating.  It would be hard to portray a villain as being a legitimate minister, and the script is careful to dodge that.  Early on, there's this exchange;

    "What religion do you profess, preacher?"
    "The religion the Almighty and I worked out betwixt us."

    We hear him praying to God, and he makes it clear that he believes that God condones his actions, that his murders are validated by his beliefs, and that killing people for money is also acceptable.  But the preacher's instincts aren't a condemnation of religion.  We see another character in particular, Icey Spoon.  She's an older lady, who thoroughly buys into the preacher.  She's convinced of his perfection.  She delivers a few comic relief lines earlier in the movie;

    "…I've been married to Walt that long, and I swear in all that time, I just lie there thinking about my canning."

    By the end of the movie, when the preacher has been arrested, she's involved in leading a lynch mob.  While many in the mob are holding torches, she's carrying an axe.

    These ideas of religious hypocrisy are balanced out with the grandmotherly character, who seems to embody the best of religious fervor.  She takes in whatever children she can.  She's generally forgiving for their transgressions (although we do see her spank one of the boys) and she does what she can to protect them.
    The movie ends on a peculiar note, as the grandmotherly character breaks the fourth wall, and addresses the viewer praising the resilience of children.

    It's worth watching, and I wonder how it would feel seeing it as a child.

    This was one of my favorite shots in the movie, especially the dollhouse-like way the camera moves beyond the walls.