RIGHT HAND/ LEFT HAND

Beware of false prophet which come to you in sheep´s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves...
-Matthew 7:15

Based on a true crime story “The Night of the Hunter” Directed by Charles Laughton is simply Astonishing. To this day i think its THE most underrated and unknown movie masterpiece of all time.

The birth of the movie villain.

Its the story of a man who puts up adds in the local newspaper as a "lonely gentleman seeking for love". Unpredictable actor and later movie icon Robert Mitchum´s epic cryptic portrayal as Harry Powell, is trully powerful. He brings tension and an evil wisdom to every frame. As Anton Chigur in No Country for Old Men, every time this character is in a scene we don´t know what is gonna happen. He plays a Reverend/serial killer who has tattoos in his fists, The words (love/hate).

By using the german expressionism (Das Cavinet of Dr. Caligari) the director was able to push black and white film styles and motifs to an unseen aesthetic spirit. Like Gabriel Figueroa with bizarre shadows, stylized dialogue, distorted perspectives, surrealistic sets, odd camera angles. All to create a sinister but familiar world. That mood is in every frame of the movie. The cinematography of Stanley Cortez is breathtaking. In some scenes, it demanded several underwater shots. Various sets were specially lighted to do specific camera movements for them to have a musical quality.

A true piece of movie art. The suspense of this 1955 thriller is like no other Hollywood film of that time, making it UNIQUE , to me the one movie that glues the 20th Century American cinema.

This is one of the most influential movies in the history of cinema giving ideas to David Lynch, Woody Allen , Alfred Hitchcock, Martin Scorsese, Terrence Malick, Jim Jarmusch, Alex Proyas, Tim Burton, The Coen Brothers, Rob Zombie and Spike Lee to name a few. A must if you haven´t seen it and if you have, watch it over and over again.