Heaven and Hell to Play with: The Filming of "The Night of the Hunter" Book

Winner of the Rondo Hatton Award for "Book of the Year" (2002) from the Classic Horror Film Board, in "Heaven & Hell to Play With: The Filming of The Night of the Hunter," author Preston Neal Jones tells us how the unique film "The Night of the Hunter" came to be, from its beginnings in the pages of Davis Grubb's novel to the acquisition of film rights by producer Paul Gregory, the hiring of Charles Laughton to direct and James Agee to write the script, to every aspect of the film's development and production--casting, designing, shooting, scoring and editing--to the profound disappointment upon its release. Recently re-released, "The Night of the Hunter," the only film directed by the late actor Charles Laughton, has now joined the select ranks of pictures chosen for inclusion in the National Film Registry at the Library of Congress and is counted among the American Film Institute's "100 Greatest Thrillers." As the late Pauline Kael pointed out in writing of "The Night of the Hunter," "...truly frightening movies have a way of becoming classics of a kind."Read More