Clint Eastwood stars as his most iconic character, ‘Dirty’ Harry Callahan, a gruff, no-bullshit San Francisco police investigator on the trail of a psychotic sniper who calls himself ‘The Scorpio Killer’. There have been many cat and mouse chase movies over the decades, especially in the paradigm of cop vs criminal, but Dirty Harry left a mark so indelible on the sub-genre, that it remains the measure for comparison over forty years later.
Two small children run for their lives from a murderous preacher in the only film actor Charles Laughton ever directed. The Night of the Hunter is a unique blend — part fable and part thriller, both pastoral and horrific, a beguiling mixture of qualities that usually mark the work of an amateur… or a genius. Laughton is as precise and purposeful as Orson Wells (even using Well’s cinematographer from The Magnificent Ambersons), but there’s also a naive, experimental quality to the film, in the way he mixes realism with German expressionism, and solemnity with odd moments of Tex Avery-style comedy.
