Actors Jane Greer and Robert Mitchum, director Jacques Tourneur and cinematographer Nicholas Musuraca on the set of Out of the Past
Watching now.
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I think this is my favorite movie
I know this is my favorite movie. Well, that and Blade Runner.
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They call it a ‘film noir.’ Truth is, the high-priced actors at the studio like Cary Grant got all the lights. Ours was lit with cigarettes.
— Robert Mitchum on Out of the Past (via nitratediva)
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Noirvember - Film 18 of 30 (my list)
The Night of the Hunter (1955, dir. Charles Laughton)Leaning, leaning, safe and secure from all alarms
Leaning, leaning, leaning on the everlasting armsAn insane preacher named Harry Powell (Robert Mitchum), serving a short sentence for stealing a car, learns of a hidden robbery score from a death row inmate (Peter Graves) talking in his sleep. After the man is dead and Powell is free, he heads to the small town where the man lived and tries to get the two people who know of its exact location to spill the beans — the dead man’s children, John (Billy Chapin) and Pearl (Sally Jane Bruce). He marries their mother, Willa (Shelley Winters), gets the townsfolk on his side, and eventually chases them across the countryside, singing the praises of the Lord every step of the way.
Shot in gothic blacks and whites and featuring a creepy turn by Robert Mitchum that’s more about presence than performance (there’s a stretch of the film where Mitchum is hardly present, yet just the idea that he could turn up again at any moment is terrifying), The Night of the Hunter is a gripping thriller about the emotional responsibilities of children. The wicked manipulations of the preacher are obviously a strain on John and Pearl, who endure any number of his malicious tricks to get them to give up the money, but John’s refusal to give up the secret is also a responsibility placed on him by his father. Who’s to blame? The beginning and the ending of the film lay the moralizing on kinda thick, but the movie in between is a foreboding masterpiece, with the child actors, Shelley Winters, and Lillian Gish adding to the film’s list of excellent performances.
I wish I’d never seen it just to have the joy of watching it again for the first time.
(Source: tylergfosterin2013)
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Nothing in the world is any good unless you can share it.
