"Crikey, it's Mitchum and DeNiro!"

I watched 'The Night Of The Hunter' last night, on my own, full of rocket fuel espresso and in pitch darkness. I think I am going to have to watch it again before trying to write something constructive. All I will say is that I enjoyed the movie a hell of a lot and I think that we are going to be very good friends

In the meantime though I am going to induct into 'Arthurs Movie Character Hall Of Fame' (see post from a few days ago) the central character from this movie, the absolute nutcase psychopath preacher Harry Powell as played by Robert Mitchum of course. Powell is the monster in a childs fairy-tale, a larger than life, genuinely menacing killer played even larger than life by Mitchum. Yet because he is played by Robert Mitchum the character is iconic and totally believable. I'll add more on this character when I get around to writing about the film.

And now for a 'Hall Of Fame First' - since I am wearing out the knees of my inexpensive Matalan jeans praising the legendary Robert Mitchum, I'm also going to add his other great screen villain, Max Cady, from 'Cape Fear'. Like Powell, Cady is a dangerous madman intent on the corruption of innocence and murder, but, whereas Powell is overstated and not exactly subtle (it is made apparent from the opening minutes of 'Hunter' that he is just fresh from the latest of many killings), Cady has had a lengthy spell in the slammer to work out how best to serve his revenge icy cold and at his leisure.

Also, their motives differ; Powell seeks to opportunistically steal a big wedge of ill gotten cash and will stop at nothing to get his hands on it, Cady's is a personal vendetta against a man he believes has wronged him.

Both Cady and Powell are two of the finest screen psychos of all time and two of Mitchum's greatest performances.

Before I go it's yet another 'First' as Max Cady enters the hall of fame twice, also as portrayed by Robert DeNiro in the 1991 remake. Although faithful to the plot of the original, there is one major difference in the remake, in that the 'victim' (played in the remake by Nick Nolte) is shown to be by no means squeaky clean and directly responsible for the harshness of Cady's sentence by knowingly 'burying' evidence, therefore you can actually sympathise with Cady to some extent, whereas the Gregory Peck victim in the original appears blameless.

I write an amateur blog, not a column for Empire (I want a radio show first anyway!), so I'm not even going to try and choose between the two portrayals, I think they are both exceptional, and usually if I am in the mood to watch 'Cape Fear' I will make sure I have time to watch both versions, back to back.

More to follow


Col