A taut, gripping, and disturbing noirish thriller that has lost none of its power and resonance. As concerned with power, manipulation and control - especially but not exclusively of the religious variety - as it is with the maguffin of the money, it sings with technical excellence, vivid symbolism, and haunting imagery. Mitchum is terrific, but it's the children who really shine; the cinematography draws many memorable and unsettling images, and the pastoral setting is used to evoke some disturbing, worrying parallels. Timeless and masterful, it's hard to forget. What the director might have gone one to accomplish is one of cinema's great unanswered questions.
Review of The Night of the Hunter
