October 1, 2019 (XXXIX: 6) Charles Laughton: NIGHT of the HUNTER
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October 1, 2019 (XXXIX: 6) Charles Laughton: NIGHT OF THE HUNTER (1955, 92m) The version of this Goldenrod Handout sent out in our Monday mailing, and the one online, has hot links. Spelling and Style—use of italics, quotation marks or nothing at all for titles, e.g.—follows the form of the sources. DIRECTOR Charles Laughton WRITING James Agee wrote the screenplay with contributions from Charles Laughton from a novel by Davis Grubb. PRODUCER Paul Gregory MUSIC Walter Schumann CINEMATOGRAPHY Stanley Cortez EDITING Robert Golden The National Film Preservation Board, USA, selected the film...an entry into the National Film Registry in 1992. CAST Robert Mitchum...Harry Powell Shelley Winters...Willa Harper Lillian Gish...Rachel Cooper generosity as an actor, he fed himself into that work. As an James Gleason ...Uncle Birdie Steptoe actor, you cannot take your eyes off him." Having Evelyn Varden...Icey Spoon cultivated a lauded acting career on stage and screen, Peter Graves...Ben Harper Laughton still “wanted to direct a film, and producer Paul Don Beddoe...Walt Spoon Gregory thought David Grubb’s bestselling novel ‘The Billy Chapin...John Harper Night of the Hunter’ was a perfect opportunity for Sally Jane Bruce...Pearl Harper Laughton to make his filmmaking debut. When Robert Gloria Castillo ...Ruby (as Gloria Castilo) Mitchum agreed to play the most important role of the film, a budget was quickly secured and Laughton’s CHARLES LAUGHTON (b. July 1, 1899 in Victoria adventure was ready to begin. However, the film’s poor Hotel, Scarborough, Yorkshire, England, UK—d. Died: box office results really hit Laughton pretty hard, making December 15, 1962 (age 63) in Hollywood, Los Angeles, him give up on the idea of returning to the director’s California) was an English stage and film actor (65 chair” (Cinephilia & Beyond). Still, “As years and decades credits). Laughton was trained in London at the Royal went by, Laughton’s movie garnered more and more Academy of Dramatic Art and first appeared professionally respect. Today, sixty years upon that fateful box office on the stage in 1926. His film career took him to disappointment, Laughton’s name is written in permanent Broadway and then Hollywood, but he also collaborated marker in the book of greatest filmmakers that ever lived, with Alexander Korda on notable British films of the era, as the movie is often cited as one of the most important including The Private Life of Henry VIII (1933), for which and influential films in the history of American cinema” he won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his (Cinephilia & Beyond). These are some of the other films portrayal of the title character. He was also nominated for he acted in: Piccadilly (1929), Down River (1931), Payment Oscars for roles in Mutiny on the Bounty (1935) and Deferred (1932), The Sign of the Cross (1932), Island of Lost Witness for the Prosecution (1957). Daniel Day-Lewis cited Souls (1932), The Barretts of Wimpole Street (1934), Ruggles Laughton as one of his inspirations, saying: "He was of Red Gap (1935), Les Misérables (1935), Rembrandt probably the greatest film actor who came from that period (1936), I, Claudius (1937), The Beachcomber (1938), of time. He had something quite remarkable. His Sidewalks of London (1938), Jamaica Inn (1939), The Laughton—NIGHT OF THE HUNTER—2 Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939), They Knew What They criticism in Time and The Nation. In 1934, he published Wanted (1940), It Started with Eve (1941), Tales of his only volume of poetry, Permit Me Voyage, with a Manhattan (1942), This Land Is Mine (1943), The Man foreword by Archibald MacLeish. In the summer of 1936, from Down Under (1943), Passport to Destiny (1944), The during the Great Depression, Agee spent eight weeks on Canterville Ghost (1944), The Suspect (1944), Captain Kidd assignment for Fortune with photographer Walker Evans, (1945), Because of Him (1946), The Paradine Case (1947), living among sharecroppers in Alabama. While Fortune did Leben des Galilei (Short) (1947), On Our Merry Way not publish his article, Agee turned the material into a (1948), Arch of Triumph (1948), The Big Clock (1948), book titled Let Us Now Praise Famous Men (1941). It sold The Girl from Manhattan (1948), The Bribe (1949), The only 600 copies before being remaindered. Agee left Man on the Eiffel Tower (1949), The Strange Door (1951), Fortune in 1937, and, in 1941, he became Time's film O. Henry's Full House (1952), Abbott and Costello Meet critic. From 1942-1948, he worked as a film critic for The Captain Kidd (1952), This Is Charles Laughton (TV Series) Nation. Agee on Film (1958) collected his writings of this (1953), Salome (1953), Young Bess (1953), Hobson's Choice period. Three writers listed it as one of the best film-related (1954), Under Ten Flags (1960), Spartacus (1960), Wagon books ever written in a 2010 poll by the British Film Train (TV Series) (1960), and Advise & Consent (1962). Institute. In 1948, Agee quit his job to become a freelance writer. One of his assignments was a well-received article for Life Magazine about the silent movie comedians Charles Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd and Harry Langdon. The article has been credited for reviving Keaton's career. As a freelancer in the 1950s, Agee continued to write magazine articles while working on movie scripts. Going beyond film criticism, he was nominated for an Oscar for the screenplay for The African Queen (1951). From 1952-1953, he wrote for the television series Omnibus. His autobiographical novel, A Death in the Family (1957), won the author a posthumous 1958 Pulitzer Prize and was adapted three times for television with the title All the Way Home in 1963, 1971, and 1981. DAVIS GRUBB (b. July 23, 1919—d. July 24, 1980) was an American novelist and short story writer. Influenced by accounts of economic hardship by depression-era Americans that his mother had seen firsthand as a social worker, Grubb produced a dark tale that mixed the plight of poor children and adults with that of the evil inflicted JAMES AGEE (b. November 27, 1909 in Knoxville, by others. The Night of the Hunter became an instant Tennessee—d. May 16, 1955 (age 45) in New York City, bestseller and was voted a finalist for the 1955 National New York) was an American novelist, journalist, poet, Book Award. It was famously filmed as a psychological screenwriter and film critic. In the 1940s, he was one of thriller by Charles Laughton with a screen adaptation the most influential film critics in the U.S., and, as Bruce written by James Agee. His 1969 novel Fools' Parade would Jackson has said during the Buffalo Film Seminars, Agee also be made into a motion picture starring James Stewart. established serious film criticism in the U.S. Despite barely Some of Grubb's short stories were adapted for television passing many of his high school courses, Agee was by Alfred Hitchcock and by Rod Sterling for his Night admitted to Harvard College's class of 1932, and, while Gallery series. there, Agee took classes taught by famous New Criticism critic I. A. Richards, and his classmate was the future poet, STANLEY CORTEZ (b. November 4, 1908 in New translator and critic Robert Fitzgerald, with whom he York City, New York—d. December 23, 1997 (age 89) in would eventually work at Time. After graduation, Agee was Hollywood, California) was an American cinematographer hired by the Time Inc. as a reporter, and moved to New (86 credits) who was twice nominated for Oscars. These York City, where he wrote for Fortune magazine in 1932- are some of the films he worked on: Four Days Wonder 1937, although he is better known for his later film (1936), Armored Car (1937), The Wildcatter (1937), I Laughton—NIGHT OF THE HUNTER—3 Cover the War! (1937), The Lady in the Morgue (1938), Carlson's Makin Island Raiders (1943), Johnny Doesn't Live Personal Secretary (1938), Exposed (1938), Risky Business Here Anymore (1944), Girl Rush (1944), Thirty Seconds (1939), They Asked for It (1939), The Forgotten Woman Over Tokyo (1944), Nevada (1944), Undercurrent (1946), (1939), Laugh It Off (1939), Margie (1940), The Black Cat Crossfire (1947), Rachel and the Stranger (1948), Blood on (1941), San Antonio Rose (1941), A Dangerous Game the Moon (1948), The Red Pony (1949), The Big Steal (1941), Badlands of Dakota (1941), Moonlight in Hawaii (1949), My Forbidden Past (1951), His Kind of Woman (1941), Sealed Lips (1942), Eagle Squadron (1942), The (1951), Macao (1952), One Minute to Zero (1952), 1952 Magnificent Ambersons (1942), The Powers Girl (1943), The Lusty Men (1952), Angel Face (1953), She Couldn't Say Since You Went Away (1944), Let There Be Light No (1953), Second Chance (1953), River of No Return (Documentary) (1946), Smart Woman (1948), The Man (1954), Track of the Cat (1954), Not as a Stranger (1955), on the Eiffel Tower (1949), The Admiral Was a Lady Man with the Gun (1955), Foreign Intrigue (1956), (1950), Abbott and Costello Meet Captain Kidd (1952), Bandido! (1956), Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison (1957), Fire Shark River (1953), The Diamond Queen (1953), Yesterday Down Below (1957), The Enemy Below (1957), Thunder and Today (1953), Dragon's Gold (1954), Black Tuesday Road (1958), The Angry Hills (1959), The Wonderful (1954), The Night of the Hunter (1955), Man from Del Rio Country (1959), Home from the Hill (1960), The (1956), The Three Faces of Eve (1957), Thunder in the Sun Sundowners (1960), The Grass Is Greener (1960), The (1959), Dinosaurus! (1960), Back Street (1961), Shock Longest Day (1962), Two for the Seesaw (1962), Rampage Corridor (1963), The Naked Kiss (1964), The Candidate (1963), The Way West (1967), Villa Rides (1968), Anzio (1964), Nightmare in the Sun (1965), Young Dillinger (1968), Secret Ceremony (1968), The Good Guys and the (1965), The Ghost in the Invisible Bikini (1966), Blue Bad Guys (1969), Ryan's Daughter (1970), The Friends of (1968), The Bridge at Remagen (1969), Doomsday Machine Eddie Coyle (1973), The Yakuza (1974), Farewell, My (1972), and Another Man, Another Chance (1977).