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The Night of the Hunter  /  Macbeth

The Night of the Hunter (1955)
October 16, 2015 - 7:30 pm

Restored by UCLA Film & Television Archive in cooperation with MGM Studios with funding provided by The Film Foundation and Robert B. Sturm.

The Night of the Hunter  (1955)


An itinerant preacher ingratiates his way into a rural, single mother's household, privately seeking a fortune her late, ex-convict husband has supposedly hidden there, and willing to dispense with his new bride and her children to secure the money.  Psychological gamesmanship explodes into violence in this strange, dream-like, American fairy tale, an iconoclastic masterpiece and Charles Laughton's only directed work for the screen.

35mm, b/w, 93 min.  Production: Paul Gregory Productions.  Distribution: United Artists Corp.  Producer: Paul Gregory.  Director: Charles Laughton.  Based on the book by Davis Grubb.  Screenwriter: James Agee, Charles Laughton.  Cinematographer: Stanley Cortez.  Editor: Robert Golden.  Composer: Walter Schumann.  With: Robert Mitchum, Shelley Winters, Lillian Gish, Billy Chapin, Sally Jane Bruce.

Restored by UCLA Film & Television Archive in cooperation with Republic Pictures, Richard Rosenfeld and the National Film and Television Archive (U.K.), with funding provided by the AFI/NEA Film Preservation Grants Program.

Macbeth  (1948)


Disillusioned by studio interference with The Lady From Shanghai (1948) at Columbia Pictures, director Orson Welles turned to smaller Republic as a base for his adaptation of Shakespeare's Macbeth.  But bad luck followed the Scottish play, as conservative Republic ordered the film shortened and dialogue re-recorded to eliminate the actors' brogues.  UCLA Film & Television Archive's restoration reverses these changes, vindicating supporters of Welles' stark, original vision.

35mm, b/w, 106 min.  Production: Republic Pictures Corp.  Distribution: Republic Pictures Corp.  Producer: Orson Welles.  Director: Orson Welles.  Based on the play by William Shakespeare.  Screenwriter: Orson Welles.  Cinematographer: John L. Russell.  Editor: Louis Lindsay.  Composer: Jacques Ibert.  With: Orson Welles, Jeanette Nolan, Dan O'Herlihy, Roddy McDowall, Edgar Barrier.