the night of the hunter exclusive limited release

Image: The Night of the Hunter

'Haunting and highly personal.clearly the work of a master.' - New York Times

'The movie freak's definitive love machine.'' - Village Voice

The Australian Centre for the Moving Image and Chapel Distribution are proud to announce the exclusive limited release of a new 35mm print of Charles Laughton's stunning classic The Night of the Hunter starring Robert Mitchum, Shelley Winters and Lillian Gish.

Mitchum plays the definitive psychopath in Laughton's chilling fairytale about a phoney preacher who stalks a widow (Shelley Winters) and then her two young children John (Billy Chapin) and Pearl (Sally Jane Bruce). The children eventually take refuge with a stoic old mother goose figure (Lillian Gish).

Famous as actor Laughton's only directorial outing, The Night of the Hunter was originally scripted by James Agee (based on the novel by Davis Grubb). Mitchum and Laughton's widow would later claim that Laughton significantly re-wrote Agee's script. The film features striking black and white cinematography by Stanley Cortez (who shot Orson Welle's The Magnificent Ambersons) and overflows with stylistic excess.

As part of the Remembrance + the Moving Image Remembered By cinema program, The Night of the Hunter screens with Daylight Moon (Lewis Klahr, USA, 2002, 13 mins, 16mm) in a double bill with Martin Scorsese's Cape Fear at 7pm from Thursday 17 to Sunday 20 April. The Night of the Hunter then continues to screen at ACMI over the Easter long weekend for a limited exclusive re-release season until Friday 25 April (inclusive).

Source/Courtesy: Chapel Distribution

Full season of new 35mm reissue exclusive to ACMI 17-25 April 2004.