I've been excited to see this film ever since I caught a biography special on Mitchum, he of the gravelly voice and cleft chin. The image of him leaning at the base of the porch steps with his tattooed fingers clenching the post is a true icon of movie photography, but I was disappointed to find it misleading vis a vis the artistry of the actual film. In all fairness, I haven't read the book (yet), but the adaptation seemed disjointed and awkward at best. I actually felt sorry for Shelley Winters and Mitchum in the infamous "wedding night" scene, both of them exuding emotion and passion in a script page that didn't hint at any. The mob scene looked like something snipped from a Universal monster flick... gotta love the grandma with the axe! Film-noir fan that I am, I couldn't help laughing at the minimalism of the sets and the sporadic, clumsy attempts to cleverly use shadows. The movie hits rock bottom with the sequences of the children running through the soundstage made to look something like a riverbank... watch for the spiderweb made of string! I really, really, really, wanted to love this movie, but it was ultimately amateurish save for Mitchum's first "sermon on Right Hand and Left Hand," which is definitely a benchmark for the presentation of the psychotic movie villain. Young cinephiles, you have been warned.
Review of The Night of the Hunter
