The Night of the Hunter
The Night of the Hunter

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- 80/100 based on 93,502 votes

It's the Great Depression. In the process of robbing a bank of $10,000, Ben Harper kills two people. Before he is captured, he is able to convince his adolescent son John and his daughter Pearl not to tell anyone, including their mother Willa, where he hid the money, namely in Pearl's favorite toy, a doll that she carries everywhere with her. Ben, who is captured, tried and convicted, is sentenced to death. But before he is executed, Ben is in the state penitentiary with a ce... (Full plot summary below)

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Actors in The Night of the Hunter:

Robert Mitchum
Shelley Winters
Lillian Gish
Billy Chapin
Sally Jane Bruce
James Gleason

Full Plot Details

It's the Great Depression. In the process of robbing a bank of $10,000, Ben Harper kills two people. Before he is captured, he is able to convince his adolescent son John and his daughter Pearl not to tell anyone, including their mother Willa, where he hid the money, namely in Pearl's favorite toy, a doll that she carries everywhere with her. Ben, who is captured, tried and convicted, is sentenced to death. But before he is executed, Ben is in the state penitentiary with a cell mate, a man by the name of Harry Powell, a self-professed man of the cloth, who is really a con man and murderer, swindling lonely women, primarily rich widows, of their money before he kills them. Harry does whatever he can, unsuccessfully, to find out the location of the $10,000 from Ben. After Ben's execution, Harry decides that Willa will be his next mark, figuring that someone in the family knows where the money is hidden. Despite vowing not to remarry, Willa ends up being easy prey for Harry's outward evangelicalism; she is a pious woman who feels she needs to atone for her sins which led to Ben doing what he did, especially as Harry presents himself as the preacher who worked at the prison and provided salvation to Ben before his death. Harry quickly figures out that John and Pearl know where the money is. Conversely, John doesn't trust Harry, John who first tries not to show to Harry that he indeed does know where the money is, and then second constantly reminds a more-trusting Pearl of their promise to their now-deceased father. With Willa devoted to her new husband, John and Pearl need some other adult assistance in evading Harry's veiled threats, an adult who not only can see the honesty and goodness in children but who can also see a true wolf in sheep's clothing like Harry.

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Movie Reviews

Chicago Sun-Times - 10/10 by Roger EbertOne of the greatest of all American films, but has never received the attention it deserves because of its lack of the proper trappings. Many "great movies'' are by great directors, but Laughton directed only this one film, which was a critical and commercial failure long overshadowed by his acting career.
Village Voice - 10/10 by Michael AtkinsonLaughton understood Agee's proximity to Grimm vaudeville, and fashioned the most intensely expressionistic movie of its day.
Time Out London - 10/10 by Tom HuddlestonIt’s the most haunted and dreamlike of all American films, a gothic backwoods ramble with the Devil at its heels.
Metro (UK) - 10/10 by Larushka Ivan-ZadehThe only film directed by actor Charles Laughton, this haunting masterpiece is simply one of the best horrors ever made.
Radio Times - 10/10 by Adrian TurnerThis thriller is one of the great masterpieces of American cinema, a movie so strangely repellent, so poetic and so utterly hypnotic that it sadly never found an audience.
The List - 10/10 by Miles FielderThis southern American Gothic chiller remains both gloriously cinematic and utterly terrifying almost 60 years after it was made.
Los Angeles Times - 10/10 by Terry AtkinsonIgnored for a long time, this film is now impossible to ignore. Mitchum is magnetic.
Guardian - 10/10 by Peter BradshawEvery frame of this film is brilliantly contrived, particularly the underwater nightmare at the end. A gripping, complex chiller.
Chicago Tribune - 10/10 by Michael WilmingtonFrom its guileless exposition and comically life-drawn Americana, to its Scripture quotations and sensitivity to a child’s perspective, the film proceeds with a simplicity of inexhaustible depth.
LarsenOnFilm - 10/10 by Josh LarsenThe Night of the Hunter is nearly as demented as its lead villain, and I mean that as a compliment.

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