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| The Night of the Hunter |
del toro's pick
Laughton's only film as director is a singular masterpiece; a work, in the words of Robert Mitchum biographer Lee Server, "of astonishing originality".
Adapted from the strange and brilliant American gothic novel by Davis Grubb, Laughton hired Stanley Cortez - who shot Welles'
The Magnificent Ambersons - as his director of photography. Laughton casts Robert Mitchum in the role of the psychopathic evangelist with a sinister inclination towards despatching widows and stalking their pesky offspring.
You haven't experienced fear at the cinema until you hear Mitchum's Preacher Powell cry out, "Children, come along now". Laughton, ironically, wasn't particularly sensitive to his young charges, deferring directorial duties to Mitchum for scenes in which the child actors featured.
Shelley Winters and Lillian Gish co-star.
