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[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/the_night_of_the_hunter_3.png]]
[[caption-width-right:350:''"Leaning, leaning, safe and secure from all alarms. Leaning, leaning, leaning on the everlasting arms."'']]
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-> ''"Ah, little lad, you're starin' at my fingers. Would you like me to tell you the little story of Right Hand-Left Hand - the story of good and evil?...H-A-T-E! It was with this left hand that old brother Cain struck the blow that laid his brother low...L-O-V-E...The right hand, friends! The hand of love...These fingers, dear hearts, is always a-warrin' and a-tuggin', one against the other."''
-->-- '''"Preacher" Harry Powell'''

''The Night of the Hunter'' is a 1955 American film noir thriller directed by Creator/CharlesLaughton and starring Creator/RobertMitchum.

The setting is rural West Virginia during TheGreatDepression. Mitchum plays Harry Powell, a charismatic but mentally-disturbed itinerant [[SinisterMinister preacher]] and [[SerialKiller serial murderer]] who one day gets married to Willa Harper (Creator/ShelleyWinters), a newly widowed mother of two. Willa's previous husband, Ben (Creator/PeterGraves), has just been hanged for robbing a bank and killing two men in the process, and Powell – who'd learned about the robbery while in prison with Ben – is hoping to get his hands on the hidden money. And then it gets really messed-up.

Creator/LillianGish, a huge star from the silent movie days who mostly played character roles after talkies came in, appears as Rachel Cooper, a CoolOldLady who defends the children from Powell.

Probably Robert Mitchum's best and most iconic performance, and definitely his creepiest (save for ''Film/CapeFear'', perhaps). This is the one where he has "Love" and "Hate" [[KnuckleTattoos tattooed across his knuckles]]. [[TheFilmOfTheBook Based on a 1953 novel of the same name]] by Davis Grubb, the film is one of the all-time classics of American cinema and Creator/CharlesLaughton's [[OneBookAuthor sole film as a director]]. Also the inspiration for the ''Music/ThirtySecondsToMars'' song of the same name.

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!!This film provides examples of:

* AdultsAreUseless: Pretty much everyone except Rachel, and even she admits she "lost her son's love" a long time ago. Especially Willa, who [[spoiler:doesn't lift a hand in her own defense when Harry kills her, despite knowing full well he's likely to kill her children next.]]
** Another good example is Birdie Steptoe. He is initially set up as someone John looks up to, yet when John comes to him for help after [[spoiler:Willa is murdered]], Birdie is a useless drunk mess due to being scared that he will be blamed for what happened due to the circumstances around it.
** By the time we meet Rachel, we're so used to every adult falling for Powell's charms that it comes across as genuinely shocking when she sees right through him.
* AnAesop: Robert Mitchum himself said the message of the movies is that it's important people don't simply trust people just because they dress like a preacher and quote the Bible, noting that dangerous predators use this as a means to get victims.
* AlphaBitch: Icey Spoon is this to the adults in the community John and Pearl lived in. She may not be a teenager, but socially she has the most dominant personality among her peers due to being so thoroughly obnoxious and domineering. While Powell's also incredibly manipulative, Willa marrying him was half Powell and half Icey nagging Willa about getting a new man in her house.
* TheAtoner: Rachel states that she "lost her son's love" a long time before the story started. She seems to be looking after the kids as a way to make up for her previous actions. All in all, this just demonstrates that she's a better person than most of the other adults in the film. She knows she did something wrong and now she's trying to make it right, and she doesn't deny her sins.
* BadHabits: Harry is a thief, con artist, and serial killer who poses as a priest and marries his executed cellmate's widow to get his hands on the man's hidden loot, but finds himself stymied by the dead man's young children. As Rachel Cooper announces at the start:
--> '''Rachel''': "[[AsTheGoodBookSays Beware of false prophets]] which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly, they are ravening wolves. Ye shall know them by their fruits. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit. Neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. Wherefore by their fruits, ye shall know them."
* BigBrotherInstinct: John is very protective of Pearl.
* BittersweetEnding: Harry Powell will be executed and the children have found a new home with Rachel, but they have most likely gone insane (or at least gotten PTSD) and have lost both their parents (and don't even get to keep the money, as it was exposed during Powell's arrest).
* TheBluebeard: Harry has an MO of marrying wealthy widows, then killing them and stealing their possessions. {{Lampshaded}} towards the end by the angry mob.
* BookEnds: The movie opens with Rachel Cooper's disembodied head reading a Bible passage directly to the viewer, in a sort of abstract, dreamlike prologue. It ends with her once again directly addressing the viewer in her famous "children abide" monologue.
* {{Brainwashed}}: Harry convinces Willa that she is a sinful woman and therefore deserves all the abuse he hurls at her.
* BreakingTheFourthWall: Rachel [[spoiler: in the final scene looks at the camera and talks to the audience about how the children will abide, and endure.]]
* BrickJoke: A rather grim example. An early scene has a hangman lamenting to his wife how much he hates his job, and the moral toll of taking human lives, most of whom were just people in bad situations, desperate to provide for their families. At the end of the movie, this character reappears, tasked with hanging Powell.
-->This time, it'll be a pleasure!
* BrokenPedestal: Say what you will about the stepfather, but the kids' real father is no saint either. And Uncle Birdie turns out to be utterly useless. Powell becomes this to Pearl once he shows his true colors.
* CallOnMe: Uncle Birdie tells John this at one point, but when the time comes, he's passed out drunk.
* {{Chiaroscuro}}: This movie has some of the starkest, most dramatically contrasted black-and-white photography ever seen outside of GermanExpressionism, symbolizing the contrast between good and evil as Harry Powell darkens the lives of the children. See [[https://i1.wp.com/culturised.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Night-fig-7.png?resize=558%2C413&ssl=1 this shot]] right before Harry murders Willa, with the brightly lit bedroom in the darkness, or [[https://i1.wp.com/culturised.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/The-Night-of-the-Hunter-6.jpg?resize=966%2C549&ssl=1 this one]] where Lillian Gish waits for Powell in a darkened house with a shotgun, or [[https://filmgrab.files.wordpress.com/2014/03/28.jpg this incredible shot]] that recalls ''Film/TheExorcist'' two decades later, when Willa comes home and the house is practically glowing.
* ChildrenAreInnocent: They abide, too. Though John is obviously torn with guilt about his father telling him to hide the money, making him swear on it, while society condemns him for his crimes of theft. In the end, when the police arrest Powell, John breaks down in tears and smashes the doll with the money on Powell.
* ChildrenAsPawns: Both in the book and the movie, Harry Powell tries to turn Pearl against her older brother John in order to convince her to tell him where Pearl and John's executed father had concealed the money he stole from a bank. Or to use her as pawn to make John speak, whatever came first. He also flirts with Ruby to make the naive teenage girl tell him if John and Pearl were adopted by Rachel Cooper.
* CoolOldLady: Rachel turns out to be quite the MamaBear as she totes a shotgun to defend John and Pearl from Harry.
* ConMan: Harry mostly acts as a preacher in order to charm and eventually defraud people. He does indeed have real religious beliefs but it's mostly there to confirm that in his own twisted mind, all of his lies, crimes, and killings are justified.
* CreepyBasement: The basement in the house where the children try to hide from Powell. It becomes one of the most intense scenes when the kids try and get out by trapping Powell there.
* CreepyChildrenSinging: After Ben's execution, the local children taunt John and Pearl with this:
-->''"Hing, hang, hung\\
See what the hangman done\\
Hung, hang, hing\\
See the robber swing..."''
* {{Determinator}}: John will do anything to keep his father's secret. Also Powell, who will do anything to get the stolen money, even if it means attempting to murder children.
* DevilInPlainSight: Harry is a knife-welding "preacher" who radiates barely contained malice and anger, yet almost no one seems to notice. His generally good looks (being played by Mitchum), and surface charm allows him to insinuate himself well into the town, and with his family.
* DidIMentionItsChristmas: The last few minutes take place during the Christmas season, months after the main story.
* DidntThinkThisThrough: [[spoiler: Harry returns to Rachel's house to confront the children even after Rachel's sternly threatens him with her shotgun. Upon returning, Harry is face to face with Rachel and tries to pull a fast one only to get shot in the arm. Harry horribly underestimate Rachel actually acting on her threat to him.]]
* DracoInLeatherPants[=/=]RonTheDeathEater: An in-universe example. John refuses to see his dad as a criminal who's essentially fucked up his childhood and thinks of the police as "bad men." This changes when he finally breaks down towards the end.
* DramaticIrony: Thanks to Harry's opening monologue, we already know he's a serial killer, so the movie is framed by the audience knowing what an evil guy he is, but the other characters being unaware. The suspense in the film isn't his villainy, but waiting to see if anyone will figure him out and finally stand up to him.[[note]]Putting TheReveal about Harry at the beginning was a pragmatic choice. UsefulNotes/TheHaysCode was still in effect, and it didn't allow members of the clergy to be depicted as villains, so the movie needed to establish upfront that he was merely posing as a preacher[[/note]]
* EarnYourHappyEnding: [[spoiler: John and Pearl find a nurturing caregiver in Rachel and are accepted as a part of the household. John provides Rachel with a surrogate son who gives her a chance to atone for her bad relationship with her real son. Ruby is forgiven for her misdeeds. And Harry will get hanged for his crimes. But everyone goes through utter hell to get to those conclusions.]]
* EvilIsBigger: 6' Harry Powell is taller than everyone else in the film except 6' 3" Ben Harper.
* FaceDeathWithDignity: Implied with Ben Harper.
* FairyTaleMotifs: In fact, it is reminiscent of the original Creator/TheBrothersGrimm tales.
* FilleFatale: The teenaged Ruby falls madly in love with Harry. She is implied to have some serious psychological problems, though in the epilogue she seems to be doing a lot better.
* FilmNoir: Albeit an unusual example in that it's set mostly in rural America rather than urban America, and is set during TheGreatDepression, and has many echoes of silent cinema.
* FlashBackEcho: Done more subtly than many recent cases. At the end of the film when [[spoiler:Harry is being arrested]], John's freak-out, begging them not to take him away, and [[spoiler:throwing the money]], echoes what he was feeling but didn't fully express when his father was being arrested at the [[BookEnds beginning of the film.]]
* {{Foil}}: [[SinisterMinister Harry Powell]] and [[CoolOldLady Rachel Cooper]] are stark opposites on the same spectrum. They're both framed as Preachers of the Christian faith in a sense (and both often quote scripture), but Powell (despite his superficial charm and good looks) embodies the darkest aspects of Christian fanaticism in the form of his serial killer ways, while Ms. Cooper (despite her rougher exterior) embodies the light in Christianity in how she protects children from harm.
** Also Rachel Cooper to Icey Spoon. Both are resolute women who quote the Bible. But Icey is a bully who falls for Powell's charisma and drives Willa into his arms, while Rachel is a tough MamaBear who is not fooled for a moment by Powell and protects the children from him.
* {{Grimmification}}: Notably the Bible verses and children's songs used to eerie effect. Charles Laughton indeed admitted that he was going for a kind of creepy fairy-tale approach, calling it a twisted Mother Goose tale.
* GuessWhoImMarrying: A very wicked stepfather.
* HastilyHiddenMacGuffin: Ben Harper hides money that he robbed from a bank in his little daughter's doll when the police come to arrest him. Harry then spends the whole film looking for it, marrying and murdering Harper's wife and pursuing the runaway children.
* HenpeckedHusband: Walt Spoon, who notably has to endure his wife ignoring his presence to tell half the town about [[spoiler:how she ignores him during sex.]]
* HeroicVow: John has sworn not to tell anyone where the stolen money is, and has to remind Pearl of this frequently. [[spoiler:The finale reveals this is a pointed subversion: all John had to do all along was return the money to the police and Powell wouldn't have been a threat. Keeping the secret caused the deaths of at least two people, including John's mother.]] The movie seems to be trying to point out just how shitty it was for John's father to put that burden on his young son in the first place, including making him swear, and insisting that he is now the man of the house who has to make the decisions, as opposed to his mother. This is in contrast to Rachel, who knows that if John is allowed to just be a child, he'll be okay.
* HorribleJudgeOfCharacter: Literally the only two people in the entire movie who have no trouble seeing through Powell's bullshit are John and Rachel. Everyone else is won over by Powell's phony charm, even if the knuckle tattoos and story about "Love" and "Hate" come across as sincerely creepy.
* {{Hypocrite}}: A town ''full'' of them, exemplified by Mrs. Spoon.
* ImplacableMan: Harry shows remarkable patience and endurance in tracking down John and Pearl, never pausing in his hunt, and even keeping on going at night.
-->'''John:''' Don't he never sleep?
** [[spoiler:He's also shot point blank by a surprised Rachel during the climax. He shrieks and flees, but is still alive the following morning. Though it is implied that she shot him with a rock salt shell.]]
* InsistentTerminology: When put on court in the beginning of the film, Harry insists to be addressed as "''Preacher'' Harry Powell". The judge retorts that in the eyes of the law he is just "Harry Powell, car thief", and he will be treated as such.
* IronicNurseryTune: "There Once Was a Pretty Fly". Harry Powell's sinister, folksy singing of the (otherwise quite uplifting) Christian hymn "Leaning on the Everlasting Arms" also has shades of this.
* JerkWithAHeartOfGold: The heavy-handed Mrs. Rachel Cooper.
* KidsAreCruel: The local children taunt John and Pearl with a nasty singsong after their father is hanged. (''"Hing, hang, hung / See what the hangman done..."'')
* KnightTemplar: Harry Powell... perhaps?
* KnowNothingKnowItAll: Icey Spoon lives her life thinking she knows everything, so she's certain that the best man Willa Harper can settle for is that nice Revered Powell.
* KnuckleTattoos: Possibly the UrExample. Certainly the TropeMaker and TropeCodifier.
* LargeHam: Harry Powell. "JOHN DOESN'T MATTER!"
** Even in universe, Harry's preacher talk is transparently phony, but the dimwitted townsfolk and lonely Willa fall for it
* {{Leitmotif}}: Preacher Powell has two. One is a menacing pair of booming notes that tend to play whenever he arrives. The other is a more InUniverse one in the form of the Christian hymn "Leaning on the Everlasting Arms", which Powell frequently sings out loud throughout the film (often being ''heard'' singing it before he actually shows up).
* LieBackAndThinkOfEngland: Mrs. Spoon, holding forth at the church picnic about how Willa's marriage to Ben "wasn't love, that was just [[UnusualEuphemism flapdoodle]]":
-->'''Icey Spoon:''' When you've been married to a man forty years, you know all that don't amount to a hill of beans. I've been married to my Walt that long, and I swear in all that time I just lie there thinkin' about my canning.
* MamaBear: Rachel defends the children with a shotgun. This is enough to scare Harry off.
* ManipulativeBastard: Harry. Very manipulative, and most definitely a bastard.
* MeaningfulName:
** The Spoons (the wife's name is Icey), who sell ice cream.
** In the Bible, Rachel is the wife of Jacob and mother of Benjamin and Joseph, making her a mother figure to two of the twelve Tribes of Israel. This movie's Rachel is also a mother figure, albeit an adoptive one.
* MenAreBetterThanWomen: Harry is evil, but he's extremely cunning and intelligent. John's father is a noble bank robber, and instinctively knows that he can only trust John with the information about where the money is hidden. Willa is a dope who sides with her new husband over her children, and Pearl (although only a child) is giggly and seems to have no grasp on circumstances. Icey Spoon is convinced that the right thing to do is for Willa to marry Harry.
* MosesInTheBullrushes: John and Pearl arrive at Rachel's farm in a drifting rowboat. The other children in her care even lampshade this.
* MyGodWhatHaveIDone: [[spoiler:The Spoons seem to have this reaction once the truth about Powell comes out at the end. They actually lead an angry lynch mob against Powell, complete with TorchesAndPitchforks.]]
* NeverARunaway: After Harry kills Willa, he lies to the townsfolk (the Spoons particularly) that she has run away and left him a note.
* NeverMessWithGranny: Rachel pulls a shotgun on Powell when he goes after John.
* NostalgiaFilter: The adorably quaint little town.
* OffscreenTeleportation: With LampshadeHanging. John and Pearl travel all night, before utterly exhausted, collapsing in the hayloft of a barn. Then, in the distance, we hear Harry's song, and we see him ride right past the farm, only a few minutes behind them. John darkly wonders "Don't he never sleep?"
* OffstageVillainy: Powell does a ''lot'' of this. [[spoiler:In fact, we only know he's a SerialKiller because he tells us so in a monologue early in the film. We really only get to see one of his murders: Willa's. Though early on we do see some children finding the corpse of another victim.]]
* OhCrap: John in the hayloft, when he hears Powell singing, then when he sees him in horseback on the horizon.
* OminousFog: The whole sequence where Willa comes home, finds out the truth about Harry, then goes to bed and lets him murder her, is wreathed in thick, mood-setting ominous fog.
* OneBookAuthor:
** In regard to Creator/CharlesLaughton's career as a film director (the original release received a poor reception from both audiences and critics).
** Also the only full-length feature film appearance for Sally Jane Bruce, who played Pearl.
* OnlySaneMan:
** John Harper, until his HeroicBSOD at the climax. Mr. Spoon sometimes has moments, but his wife is swift to fix ''that''.
** Rachel Cooper, smart enough to see the inconsistencies in Powell's sob story, smart enough to pull a shotgun on him.
* RhetoricalQuestionBlunder: After Powell tells Mrs. Spoon that Willa "ran away from home", Mrs. Spoon (in her usual false moralism) ponders out loud what on Earth possessed Willa for her to abandon her children. Powell, without missing a beat, just answers "Satan!".
* RuleOfSymbolism: While sitting up with her shotgun, Rachel spots an owl catching a rabbit. Forlornly, she says to herself that "It's a hard world for little things."
* SceneryPorn: The riverboat scene. Water reflected on lake at night is both scary and eerie.
* SerialKiller: [[spoiler:"Twenty-five wives!" "And he killed every last one of them!"]]
* SexIsEvilAndIAmHorny: Harry watches the burlesque dancer at the beginning of the film with an expression that is equal parts lust and loathing. The knife poking through his coat (and in the original screenplay, it was his pants) isn't subtle. After marrying the children's mother, he pointedly refuses to sleep with her, and mocks her desire.
* SinisterMinister: Harry maintains that he's doing God's work. Then again, he's nuts. [[spoiler:Rachel doesn't fall for the act for a moment.]]
* SinisterSwitchblade: Just about the most sinister one ever. Harry Powell's favorite weapon, which he likes to flick open to intimidate little children, or when he's about to slit his wife's throat, or when he's getting a SexIsEvilAndIAmHorny feeling.
* SmugglingWithDolls: The stolen money that Powell spends the film seeking is used to stuff a little girl's rag doll.
%% * SmugSnake: Mrs. Spoon really needs to die. Harry's a smug prick, too.
* SomethingElseAlsoRises: Ever seen this trope acted out before with a ''switchblade''? Didn't think so. But that's just the kind of guy [[SerialKiller Harry Powell]] is...
* SoundtrackDissonance: ''"Leanin', leanin', safe and secure from all alarm..."''
* ScreamDiscretionShot: The brief sequence of an owl catching a rabbit (described above under RuleOfSymbolism). We see the owl on the branch. We see the rabbit. We see the owl swoop. We see Rachel's tired face, and we hear the rabbit's squeal.
* SouthernGothic: Set in the Ohio Valley rather than the Deep South but still very much fits the trope.
* SouthernGothicSatan: Sinister, charming, and otherworldly, Harry Powell has strong shades of this trope. He exposes the shallow moralism of the people who fall for him, and the genuine virtue of those who don't.
* StageMoney: When Pearl is making paper dolls from the money, you can see the bills are actually Mexican currency ("Diez Pesos" is plainly visible). The US Treasury Department forbade filmmakers from showing actual American money on-screen at the time due to fears over counterfeiting.
* StockParodies: Harry's tattoos have become one of these.
* StrawMisogynist: Harry Powell really hates women to a startling degree. He regularly kills them, and while he persecutes both John and Pearl, he is openly abusive to Pearl, including slapping her at one point, but he's politely insidious to John. When Rachel Cooper asks him where John and Pearl's mother is when he claims that he is their father, instead of saying that she's dead, he says that she ran off with another man (during prayer meeting no less), and in the finale he refers to Rachel and her makeshift orphanage as "whores of Babylon".
* SymbolicSereneSubmersion: After Harry has finished lying to the Spoons about Willa's apparent running away, the scene cuts abruptly to a long shot of Willa's body submerged in the water, her hair floating like the seaweed, after Harry has killed her. Since she allowed him to kill her, this reflects her passivity.
* TheyCallMeMisterTibbs: "''Preacher'' Harry Powell."
* TheyLookJustLikeEveryoneElse: Harry Powell is either this or a DevilInPlainSight, depending on how sensitive your [[DetectEvil Evildar]] is. He seems like a charming and folksy preacher and the best stepfather a KidHero could ever want, but is actually a PsychoKnifeNut, TheBluebeard, and a SerialKiller.
* ThinkingOutLoud: Rachel does this frequently, which makes it a little more plausible in the final scene when she starts [[BreakingTheFourthWall speaking directly to the viewer]].
* TorchesAndPitchforks: The film's climax has the Spoons leading an angry lynch mob against Powell.
* ToxicFriendInfluence: Icey Spoon's a twit, but she's so obnoxious most people tend to defer to her because she thinks she knows best for everyone.
* ViceCity: Harry characterizes Cincinnati, Ohio and Parkersburg, West Virginia as "Sodoms of the Ohio River".
* VillainousBreakdown: Powell does ''not'' react well when the children elude him in the boat.
* VillainWithGoodPublicity: Powell is this due to being a ManipulativeBastard. John and Rachel Cooper are the only two that see through his act.
* WeWillMeetAgain: When Rachel chases him off with the shotgun, Powell promises he'll be back... after dark.
* WhamLine: "And he ain't no preacher neither!" This line sets up the final act, showing that Rachel isn't taken in by Harry's phony piety and that she's more than willing to challenge him.
* WhyDidYouMakeMeHitYou: "Oh, look, you made me lose my temper."
* [[WickedStepmother Wicked Stepfather]]: Harry Powell, one of the most prominent examples in cinematic history.
* WouldHurtAChild: Harry has no qualms about attempting to beat the truth about the whereabouts of the money out of John and Pearl. He even threatens Pearl with slitting John's throat in order to browbeat her into spilling the beans.
* YouHaveToBelieveMe:
** John tells his mother that Harry was asking about the money Ben stole. Willa tells him to stop telling lies.
** It's hard to put into words how gratifying it is when Rachel finally ''does'' believe John and calls Harry a liar to his face.
* YoureNotMyFather: John makes this clear to Harry right from the beginning, almost in these exact words.
-->You ain't my pa.
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