The Night of the Hunter, 1955. Directed by Charles Laughton, written by James Agee (and an uncredited Laughton.) Starring Billy Chapin, Robert Mitchum, Shelley Winters, Lillian Gish, James Gleason, Evelyn Varden (so I annoying I want to take Preacher’s switchblade to her), Don Beddoe, Peter Graves, and the creepy Sally Jane Bruce.
and,
Davis Grubb’s The Night of the Hunter, published by Harper Brothers, New York, 1953.
We all know of great novels that have been turned into awful movies. But what about those rare moments when a movie is so good that it overshadows a decent source novel? And then there are those times, rarer still, when a great movie’s shadow casts its darkness over a forgotten book that turns out–surprise!–to be superior in every way to the classic film.
Consider the case of the movie The Night of the Hunter. Profoundly bizarre, funny in spots, terrifying in others, referencing silent films and Grimm’s fairy tales and stories from the Holy Bible, Night is a classic flick by any account, and a personal top ten favorite. So imagine my shock when I opened the novel, casually, and began to read the book by long-dead, long-forgotten novelist Davis Grubb. Reading the original made the movie so much more moving. In fact, the book ruined a good many evenings, and got to the point where I literally couldn’t read ten pages without crying. Was screenwriter James Agee moved in the same way? Or director Charles Laughton? Read the book yourself… if you can.
