the night of the hunter

The Night of the Hunter is a 1955 American thriller film directed by Charles Laughton and starringRobert Mitchum and Shelley Winters.^[1] The film is based on the 1953 novel of the same name byDavis Grubb, adapted for the screen by James Agee and Laughton. The novel and film draw on the true story of Harry Powers, hanged in 1932 for the murders of two widows and three children in Clarksburg, West Virginia. The film's lyric and expressionistic style sets it apart from other Hollywood films of the 1940s and 50s, and it has influenced later directors such as David Lynch, Martin Scorsese, Terrence Malick, Jim Jarmusch, the Coen brothers, Rob Zombie, and Spike Lee.