The Night of the Hunter
James Agee, Davis Grubb, and Charles Laughton, 1955
#5 (chronologically) in Mike D'Angelo's list of twelve films
to which he would give a score of 100 out of 100.
Premise
A faux preacher terrorizes the family of his former cellmate,
trying to get hold of $10,000 the cellmate had hidden in his
daughter's doll.
Evaluation
Ha ha ha! Wow, this was painful. Horrible acting, incredibly
stilted dialogue... yes, yes, it's supposed to be "expressionistic,"
but the fact that it's on purpose doesn't excuse it.
Commentary
About midway through the movie the frighteningly owl-faced
daughter takes the money out of the doll and we see that the
bills are actually pesos. I was hoping that the climax of the
movie would be the preacher getting hold of the money only to
discover that the cellmate was so stupid that he had actually
stolen about $15 worth of Mexican currency, but it didn't
happen.
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