The Night of the Hunter (1955, Charles Laughton)

Night of the Hunter is a singular experience. Definitionally. It’s the only film Laughton ever directed, which makes sense. The film’s visuals are decades too early for the composites they can do; Laughton did direct plays, which also makes sense. Hunter feels “stagy,” but not. Laughton directs his actors for close-up without ever losing track of their place on stage. Plus, there are some fantastic big sets of the Ohio river shore. They’re during the children’s fairy tale adventure, which makes them more successful.

Hunter doesn’t start as a children’s film, not exactly, but it will be one for the majority of its runtime. The last third or so is Lillian Gish’s movie. It’s a strange misogynistic patriarchal boot-straps reinforcement arc, but she’s also phenomenal, and Laughton directs it like a Disney cartoon, so it’s troubled but outstanding. Actually, Gish starts the movie. She appears over a star field with some relevant Bible quotes because Hunter is ostensibly about top-billed Robert Mitchum.

He’s a charming, serial killer preacher, traveling from rich widow to rich widow during the Great Depression. The film opens with a helicopter shot of some boys playing, then zooming in to them finding a murdered widow. Cut to Mitchum talking to God while driving away. It’s a bunch of quick character setup because we’ll never see him justify himself again. He becomes a… well, he becomes a Hunter, but also just a function of the kids’ story.

The kids are Billy Chapin and Sally Jane Bruce. Their first scene is dad Peter Graves getting home after a bank robbery, with the cops in hot pursuit. He hides the cash, telling Chapin not to tell mom Shelley Winters about it because she’s flighty. Graves soon gets hanged, but not before his cellmate–Mitchum, of course—hears about the stolen money (thanks to Graves talking in his sleep).

Pretty soon, Mitchum’s sniffing around widow Winters and her kids. Chapin’s suspicious, but Winters’s gossipy church lady best friend and boss Evelyn Varden likes the idea of her settling down with a man of God. And Mitchum seems all too happy to oblige. Plus, Bruce thinks Mitchum’s just great, even if Chapin’s old enough to know something’s not kosher.

Unfortunately, Chapin’s only confidant is his drunken uncle James Gleason.

The first half of the movie is Mitchum worming his way into Winters’s life and affections—and setting up his ministry, something the film rushes through because Gish isn’t back to establish Mitchum’s not a true Christian because he’s not her kind of Christian—then there’s the children’s dreamy adventure, then foster mom Gish’s juxtaposition with Mitchum.

The setting plays a big part in the first half. It’s a small, suffering Depression-era town. Chapin and Bruce’s dad killed two people and then got hanged; they’re infamous. Mom Winters is infamous. Varden’s a good friend to her. The character relationships are delicate and complicated, something Laughton understands and directs for. Both the actors’ performances and how he frames those performances. The film’s screenplay—based on a Davis Grubb novel (better name than anything in the movie) with James Agee adapting—has a particular ear to the dialogue. It’s smooth but stagy; only, since Laughton never lets the film be stagy, it’s something else. It does make sense later with Gish and the Christian patriarchal reinforcement thing; the acting and filmmaking are so good, it never really matters until then.

Mitchum’s the runaway great performance. He starts scary and just gets worse. He goes from killer stepfather to nightmarish demon. Especially once he and Gish start squaring off. The film sets it up as real versus fake Christian, but… it’s not even different sides of the coin. The reveal of Mitchum’s actual brand of Christianity informs a whole bunch about the character (intentionally). The similar reveal on Gish—even with all its (qualified) humanity—informs a bunch about the filmmakers.

Anyway.

Gish is great too. Winters is real good but doesn’t get a full arc because the kids’ adventure takes over. Though, actually, neither does Mitchum.

The kids are okay. Low okay. Chapin’s better with Bruce or the other kids than with the adults, which isn’t great. He and Bruce fade out in the third act, with Mitchum preying on Gish’s teenage ward, Gloria Castillo. Or at least Castillo wishing he would. Hunter can get away with it because of the fairy tale structure.

Bruce is often adorable but not particularly good. Gleason’s fun but the part’s poorly written. It’s a caricature with too many details. Varden’s a little much but likable enough.

Even with their big performances, Mitchum and Gish aren’t ever the whole show. Laughton ensures it’s always Night of the Hunter, a heart-warming, audiovisual spectacle of starvation, robbery, murder, and ice cream.

The technicals are all phenomenal. Stanley Cortez’s photography, Robert Golden’s cutting, and Walter Schumann’s music. Laughton loves using sound, whether the score, diegetic sound, or diegetic signing. Mitchum’s smooth-talking preacher knows he’s got a good singing voice, which pays off in one of the third act’s most incredible sequences.

Night of the Hunter’s a beautifully made, often beautifully acted, achievement of a motion picture. Just a tad too reductive of its female characters. Even if you give it the terrible parenting advice because 1955… the patriarchal messaging is a bridge too far.

Warning Shot (1967, Buzz Kulik)

Warning Shot is almost successful. For most of the film, director Kulik and screenwriter Mann Rubin craft an engaging mystery. Then the third act happens and they both employ cheap tricks and it knocks the film off course. It’s a rather short third act too–the film’s got a peculiar structure, probably to allow for all the cameos–and it just falls apart. What’s worse is the plot was already meandering (and promised more meandering) by that point.

David Janssen is a cop about to go to trial for killing an upstanding doctor. He’s got to prove himself innocent–or the doctor dirty–which means he visits various people. The first act–with Ed Begley as his boss, Keenan Wynn as his partner, Sam Wanamaker as the DA out to get him and Carroll O’Connor as the hispanic coroner–is completely different than the rest of the film. Kulik uses cockeyed angles, which Joseph F. Biroc shoots beautifully (though he doesn’t do as well with the hand-held look Kulik goes for in other early scenes). It makes all the exposition sail. The angles and the actors. The actors are very important.

There’s only one weak performance in Warning Shot–Joan Collins as Janssen’s estranged wife–all the rest are good or better. Even when it’s a single scene like Eleanor Parker or George Sanders. Parker’s better, she’s got a lot more to do than sit behind a desk and be a snot, which Sanders accomplishes admirably. George Grizzard is solid as Janssen’s newfound ally and Stefanie Powers is great as the dead doctor’s nurse. Lillian Gish has a small part as a witness and she’s a lot of fun. Begley, Wynn and especially Wanamaker are all strong. Carroll O’Connor as the–wait for it–Hispanic coroner is a little weird, but he’s not bad, just Carroll O’Connor playing a Mexican.

There’s a lot going on in the story for the first half of the film; the second half doesn’t have much material as far as the mystery, but it does have material for the supporting cast. They work at it and Janssen’s a phenomenally sturdy lead. He’s able to sell everything, from drinking buttermilk as a vice to fending off a seductive Collins. Bad performance or not, the latter seems unlikely.

I suppose the somewhat lengthy slide into troubled mystery waters is a bonus. It makes Warning Shot less disappointing. Even the finale, with its problems, should be better just because of location and Jerry Goldsmith’s competent score, but Kulik fumbles it. He also has some really bad blacking out sequences, one near the end, which might help to forecast the problem finish.

Still, some good acting, some great acting, a fine lead from Janssen; Warning Shot diverts for its entire runtime and intrigues for more than half of it.

The Cobweb (1955, Vincente Minnelli)

A more appropriate title might be The Trouble with the Drapes, but even with the misleading moniker, The Cobweb is a good Cinemascope drama. Cinemascope dramas went out some time in the mid-1960s. Vincente Minnelli is great at them. In The Cobweb, he turns a little story (I can’t believe it’s from a novel–it must have had a lot more on the characters, since the present action is incredibly limited) into a big movie. Richard Widmark doesn’t hurt. Even as a caring psychiatrist, Widmark amplifies the film. Nothing he does–except for one scene, his performance is understated–but something about his presence. His and Lauren Bacall’s. They signal big Cinemascope drama. So does Leonard Rosenman’s score. Rosenman brings the music up for all the characters’ emotions and, since some of the characters do a lot solo, there’s quite a bit of the music. Only once does it get a little too much, when Gloria Grahame (as Widmark’s wife; Bacall’s the nurse he likes too much) is freaking out. Oddly, the dialogue plays against the omnipresent music. The Cobweb has very delicate–and very good–dialogue. It’s one of the reasons the film succeeds: good dialogue performed by good actors makes even the most banal story involving. Of course, it doesn’t hurt The Cobweb pulls itself out from its third act spiral.

There’s not much going on in the film–it really is all about the fallout of buying new drapes for a psychiatric clinic–and it’s the characters keeping it moving. At the end, there needs to be a resolution and so–I assume it’s from the book, but it’s funny enough it might be a filmic innovation–things get resolved. Cinemascope dramas always resolve nicely at the end, part of the genre requirements. But The Cobweb‘s resolution is too easy. It’s too abbreviated. But at the last moment, in a very nicely timed scene, it pulls off a great close.

John Houseman produced the film, which might account for Mercury Theatre member Paul Stewart’s too small role, and maybe Houseman’s involvement accounts for some of the gentleness in the picture. The scenes with Widmark and his son playing chess or talking are some of the film’s most effective, because they’re–for the majority of the running time–the only real insight we get in to Widmark’s feelings. The rest of the time, until he and Bacall get inappropriate, he’s too busy worrying about his patients. Grahame’s really good in a difficult, unlikable role, and managing to keep the character sympathetic by the end of the film is a real achievement on Grahame’s part. Bacall’s good tog, but her character gets reduced into an “other woman” role (but she has a great exit). Other exceptional performances (they’re all good) are Charles Boyer and Lillian Gish. Boyer has a slightly more difficult role, but Gish is more impressive, maybe just because I’m unfamiliar with her work.

There’s a little bit too much going on in The Cobweb. There’s easily material for three films in here–Widmark and Grahame, Bacall’s character needs a whole picture, and John Kerr and Susan Strasberg’s mental patient romance deserves one too (Kerr’s real impressive and it’s he and Grahame who get the film off to its good start). It’s an imperfect Cinemascope drama, though a great example of one, but still a satisfying experience.