Thursday 8 August 2024
1:30 pm – 4:30 pm
SMSA members are invited to watch The Night of the Hunter (1955).
About the film:
Directed by Charles Laughton
Film noir | Thriller | 1 hr 32 min
The Night of the Hunter is a 1955 American film noir thriller directed by Charles Laughton and starring Robert Mitchum, Shelley Winters and Lillian Gish. The screenplay by James Agee was based on the 1953 novel of the same name by Davis Grubb. The plot involves a serial killer (Mitchum) who poses as a preacher and pursues two children in an attempt to get his hands on $10,000 of stolen cash hidden by their late father.
The novel and film draw on the true story of Harry Powers, who was hanged in 1932 for the murder of two widows and three children in Clarksburg, West Virginia. The film’s lyrical and expressionistic style, borrowing techniques from silent film, sets it apart from other Hollywood films of the 1940s and 1950s, and it has influenced such later directors as Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Robert Altman, Spike Lee, Martin Scorsese, the Coen brothers and Guillermo del Toro. (The Night of the Hunter (film) – Wikipedia)
“What a compelling, frightening and beautiful film it is. And how well it has survived its period…. setting his story in an invented movie world outside conventional realism, Laughton gave it a timelessness.” Roger Ebert
Film Introduction & Closing Remarks
The screening will include an introduction and closing remarks by SMSA member, Peter Rainey.
This event will be held in person at the Henry Carmichael Theatre, Level 1, 280 Pitt Street Sydney.
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