BY ROBIN D FOX
First off, this 1955 noir classic is amazing; masterful and glorious. Second off, this movie is completely bonkers. Utterly bizarre, operatic, seemingly inconsistent, while simultaneously perfect. The stylization of this movie is way over top, but in a brilliant, groundbreaking way.
It begins as a weird twisted thriller, then becomes a Bjork video (I’m serious, there’s a bit in the middle where one of our young leads begins to sing a haunting, bizarrely current sounding song and the movie descends visually into something hatched from a Michel Gondry fever dream), then it becomes something else entirely. But, the crazy part is, it all works.
The story takes place during the depression and follows Robert Mitchum’s Harry Powell, a crazed preacher traveling the countryside; murdering women who tempt him sexually: every time he’s aroused he pops his switchblade, cutting through his coat pocket. He’s arrested for stealing a car and thrown in jail where he shares a cell with Peter Graves. Graves’ character has robbed a bank to provide for his family. He’s stashed the cash and only his children know where it’s hid. Powell extracts this info before Graves’ character is executed and, once free, he seeks out Graves’ family.
Powell impresses the small town where Graves’ family lives with his bizarre preaching style (the story of love and hate is a must see; a scene aped by Spike Lee in Do the Right Thing). Graves’ young children (the surprisingly good Billy Chapin as John Harper and the adorable Sarah Jane Bruce as Pearl Harper) are not so easily moved by Powell’s pageantry; John in particular is utterly terrified of the man. Powell quickly seduces their mother, Willa (played with tragic depth by the great Shelly Winters), marries her, and moves into their home. At every turn he attempts to extract the location of the loot from both children. Willa finally catches him in the act and he murders her coldly (in one of the eeriest scene of this or any era, we see her body, bound to her automobile at the bottom of the river).
With no one to protect them, the children flee and an amazingly atmospheric chase ensues, the culmination of which, I will not give away.
Brilliant, brilliant stuff. Utterly pioneering and iconic at every turn. This movie goes to darker places than most movies did then (or really do now), addresses things that are surprising even by today’s standards. And does so with as much immersive style as an early Tim Burton film.
It’s fantastic!
A financial flop in it’s time, Charles Laughton would never direct another film. A damn shame in my book.
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