BUY TICKETS HERE
Join us at 1 p.m. Sunday, October 13 for director Charles Laughton’s timeless thriller “The Night of the Hunter” (1955).
THE NIGHT OF THE HUNTER | 1955 | DIRECTOR: Charles Laughton | WITH: Robert Mitchum, Shelley Winters, Lilian Gish, James Gleason, Peter Graves | RUNNING TIME: 1H 32M | UNRATED contains adult situations and themes | PROJECTION 2K digital
Incredibly, the only film the great actor Charles Laughton ever directed, “The Night of the Hunter” is truly a stand-alone masterwork. A horror movie with qualities of a Grimm fairy tale, it stars a sublimely sinister Robert Mitchum as a traveling preacher named Harry Powell (he of the tattooed knuckles), whose nefarious motives for marrying a fragile widow, played by Shelley Winters, are uncovered by her terrified young children. Graced by images of eerie beauty and a sneaky sense of humor, this ethereal, expressionistic American classic—also featuring the contributions of actress Lillian Gish and writer James Agee—is cinema’s most eccentric rendering of the battle between good and evil.
“Charles Laughton’s “The Night of the Hunter” (1955) is one 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.
“Many great movies use actors who come draped in respectability and prestige, but Robert Mitchum has always been a raffish outsider. And many great movies are realistic, but “The Night of the Hunter” is an expressionistic oddity, telling its chilling story through visual fantasy.
“What a compelling, frightening and beautiful film it is! And how well it has survived its period. Many films from the mid-1950s, even the good ones, seem somewhat dated now, but by setting his story in an invented movie world outside conventional realism, Laughton gave it a timelessness.’ — Roger Ebert
Tickets are $5 and available at link above. Students use code UMSTUDENT at checkout for free admission (must show Cane card at the door).
