In The Night of the Hunter's opening sequence, its penchant for juxtaposing postcard-ready visions of idyllic American life with grim horrors is handily established as we watch a bunch of precocious youngsters engaging in a game of hide-and-seek. The game gets interrupted by one of the kids discovering a corpse covered in dollar bills in a nearby cellar. Suddenly, all the tranquility has been thrown out the window as both the kids and the viewer ponder who could be behind such a gruesome crime. Turns out, it's Reverend Harry Powell (Robert Mitchum), a preacher who is adherent to the words of his diety (he never specifies what religion he preaches, though it bears a resemblance to traditional Christianity) and has no objections to viciously killing widows and taking their money.
His newest target turns out to be Willa Harper (Shelley Winters), the widow of a deceased jail cellmate that hid $10,000 somewhere on the Harper family property. Powell begins to woo Willa Harper under the guise of romantic infatuation but in reality, all he wants is the money stashed somewhere in her home. Eventually, he realizes Willa's two kids, John (Billy Chapin) and Pearl (Sally Jane Bruce), know where the cash is but the youngsters promised their Pa they wouldn't give up the location of the cash. So begins a lengthy battle between John & Pearl and this bloodthirsty Reverend, one who will chase them to all corners of the Earth, or at least to the home of the kindly Rachel Cooper (Lillian Gish), to get what he wants.
The Night of the Hunter is a well-crafted terrifying exercise in every respect, but it's especially impressive on a visual front, which sees director Charles Laughton and cinematographer Stanley Cortez opting for a visual style that takes inspiration from German Expressionism. As Rachel Cooper says late into the movie, "it's a harsh world for little ones", and that harshness is reflected in how much of the film's sets are less interested in replicating reality than they are in reflecting just how intimidated John and Pearl are by this man who is determined to secure $10,000 at all costs. This is especially evident in the environments seen in the background when John and Pearl make an important journey up a river, the sights that occur behind them feel like precursors to what would be eventually seen in a Tim Burton movie rather than something that would be found in a slice of ultra-realistic cinema.
Similarly, the masterful use of shadows proves to be a fantastic way of overtly conveying the villainy of Harry Powell, he and shadows go together in The Night of the Hunter like Peanut Butter and Jelly. In a pivotal scene where Willa realizes the true motivations of Harry Powell, shadows dominate their bedroom as an indicator of just how much terrifying control he has over the lives of the Harper family. It's a haunting sequence making great use of shadows and dark spaces that are made all the more unnerving by how it's captured in a wide shot that sees Willa surrounded and outmatched by darkness. Like Powell and shadows, wide shots and darkly-lit scenes turn out to be a perfect pairing for atmosphere visuals in The Night of the Hunter. An extended shot of Powell riding on horseback in the far distance as he searches for John and Pearl is yet another beautiful shot that makes great use of both every inch in the frame and darkness to instill in the audience a sense of dread.
The Night of the Hunter is a visual masterclass, one truly cannot compliment cinematographer Stanley Cortez enough for his work here in creating such a powerful ambiance of dread. Robert Mitchum's petrifying lead performance as Reverend Powell is another heavy contributor to this ambiance, especially since both him and the screenplay (penned by James Agee and Charles Laughton) draw shocking (in a good way) amount of inspiration from how real-world religious figures can put on a holier-than-thou exterior while having selfish corrupt interior motivations. The way Mitchum manifests Powell's hateful attitude towards women, shaming them for having any sort of personal urges like wedding night intimacy, chills you to the bone thanks to how much it's informed by the real world where so many men see religion as a way to put women "in their place" rather than as a way to spread hope and joy to others.
That latter approach to religion is represented by Rachel Cooper, a hopeful selfless figure to Powell's self-motivated nemesis. Their contrasting approaches to theology come to a head in a beautiful climactic moment that pays off the recurring motif in The Night of the Hunter of characters singing hymns. Usually, it's Powell doing the singing as he enters a scene as a sort of warning of an incoming menacing presence to the viewer. In this climactic moment, Powell once again sings a hymn to inform everyone that he's here to bring misery to the table, but as he sings, Cooper joins in and sings the same hymn. However, whereas Powell just sings the chorus of the tune as "Leaning", Cooper sings it in its proper manner as "Lean on Jesus".
Up to this point, the recurring presence of hymns, especially when they're done in voice-over over downbeat imagery has been a great way for The Night of the Hunter to create a somber mood, but it ends up paying off in a way that crystallizes why Powell and Cooper are the antagonist and protagonist, respectively, of this story. Powell believes in nothing, like so many people back when this film originally came out and in the modern era, he's a person only uses religion as an excuse to justify his wretched behavior. But Cooper sees religion as a way to help each other, John, Pearl and the other children can reliably lean on her for help just as she can reliably lean on Jesus. In the land of relentless shadows and darkness that The Night of the Hunter uses as a backdrop for its story, this scene distills beautifully what separates the people from the monsters like Reverend Henry Powell.
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