Dec. 03, 2002 - 7:10 pm

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The Night of the Hunter (1955)

continuing on my IMDb volley of films, this one is number 131 on the list today. and it is basically insane. this is the most nuts movie i have seen in a long time. you know where you have one of those dreams that doesn't make tons of sense, but seems to have a bit of continuity to it? like if you tried to describe the continuity of events to other people, you know that it wouldn't sound logical, but having seen the events take place yourself, you sort of feel as though you understand? and then as far as how the dream makes you feel, it's one of those where it's mostly scary and the rest of it is just wrong. yeah, that's this movie in a nutshell.

the film starts off with a father returning home after a bank robbery and telling his children that he's stolen $10,000 dollars. he then hides the money, tells the children never to tell where it is and then he's sent to prison where he's later hung. while in prison, he meets a preacher with a switchblade who claims to have his own religion that he and God have worked out between each other. the rest of the film is the insane rampage of the preacher trying to impose himself on the lives of the children, trying to wring the secret from their minds, and then chasing them as they try to escape his rage. yeah, it's a wild ride.

apparently this film has a local connection, as the head guy at the library downtown was telling me. a guy named James Agee did the screenplay. he was born in Knoxville, Tn. that's where i'm currently living/working. i guess i can't say he was the creator of the insanity of this film though, since he just basically did a film adaptation of a book here. anyway, it's just interesting to see something that was created by some local guy who has streets named after him that you've driven on before.

it really freaks me out whenever i see Shelley Winters in a film. why do people use her? i guess because she's just wrong and needs to be killed. i think that she's been killed in all three of the films that i've seen her in before. well, those are all the ones i can think of that i've seen her in anyway. i think i just answered my own question. apparently it's just human nature to think that Shelley Winters needs to die. an unfortunate truth...she's currently 80 years old and still therefore alive.