John Crowley's LJ (RSS Feed)
04-18-2008, 12:57 AM
Everyone knows there is a danger in revisiting books or movies you were amazed or knocked out by long ago. The difficulty is in knowing which ones to avoid or let lie. Something L. said a few weeks ago convinced me that she should see "Night of the Hunter", the film made from the Davis Grubb novel, script by James Agee, directed by Charles Laughton (his debut and never repeated). Robert Mitchum cast against type as the creepy serial-killer preacher.
Well no. It begins sort of all right, though the Kentucky townspeople are cliches and over the top. Shelley Winters as the hot confused wife has moments, and so does Mitchum, though everything is pitched a little high -- it might have made a good opera. Expressionistic shooting, okay. But it rapidly becomes ridiculous, and the last half hour, in which Lillian Gish as a hardy old keeper of a house fro strays and runaways, is mawkish beyond belief, with hours of dramaturgy crammed into minutes of film time. Laughton's direction has some interesting moments -- he liked closeups of frogs, birds, and weeds along the paradigmatic river -- but then he spoils it by showing an owl falling upon a rabbit just as Mitchum shows up to threaten the children.
By then L had long since left the room and gone to bed.
(Original Post) (http://crowleycrow.livejournal.com/84519.html)
Well no. It begins sort of all right, though the Kentucky townspeople are cliches and over the top. Shelley Winters as the hot confused wife has moments, and so does Mitchum, though everything is pitched a little high -- it might have made a good opera. Expressionistic shooting, okay. But it rapidly becomes ridiculous, and the last half hour, in which Lillian Gish as a hardy old keeper of a house fro strays and runaways, is mawkish beyond belief, with hours of dramaturgy crammed into minutes of film time. Laughton's direction has some interesting moments -- he liked closeups of frogs, birds, and weeds along the paradigmatic river -- but then he spoils it by showing an owl falling upon a rabbit just as Mitchum shows up to threaten the children.
By then L had long since left the room and gone to bed.
(Original Post) (http://crowleycrow.livejournal.com/84519.html)