An atmospheric allegory of good and evil, The Night of the Hunter stars Robert Mitchum as Harry Powell, a pulpitless preacher with LOVE and HATE tattooed on his knuckles. Hot after some purloined booty, Powell chases two innocent children across a menacing rural landscape where only nature stands fast against man's moral decay. Laughton's Southern Gothic masterpiece takes on a fabulous unreality as Stanley Cortez's chilling black-and-white photography mingles with quirky Expressionist settings. Central to the film is Powell's dire sermon, “the story of right hand, left hand,” which evokes with biblical intensity the eternal struggle now displaced as his own pathological quandary. The irreverend Powell's crazed religion is one “the Almighty and me worked out betwixt us,” a kind of DIY dementia. When the children take shelter at the homestead of Mother Cooper (Lillian Gish), an earthy guardian of innocence, the right hand of love gets ready for a knock-out blow.

On Saturday, July 26, Robert Gitt will present a program of outtakes from The Night of the Hunter.