A Miracle Can Happen

Today I was feeling like Félicie, the heroine of Eric Rohmer's Conte D'Hiver , because, you know, I found out that it's worth waiting for miracles to happen, even if the chances are seemingly infinitesimal.

What happened, then? Well, you may remember that a couple of years ago there was talk about a new DVD release of The Night of The Hunter. The project seemed shelved shortly after its announcement, and I crossed my fingers in case that cancellation was for the better.

And then today, Professional Tourist most kindly e-mailed me the news. Well, fasten your seatbelts!:

Night of the Hunter will be released in november in a two-disk DVD and Blu-Ray edition. By Criterion. With loads of extras.

I will confess that a NOTH edition by Criterion was the ultimate dream of many film-lovers. Personally, the actual release comes very near to my wildest cinephile dreams :

:: New, restored high-definition digital transfer (with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition)
:: Audio commentary featuring assistant director Terry Sanders, film critic F. X. Feeney, archivist Robert Gitt, and author Preston Neal Jones
:: Charles Laughton Directs “The Night of the Hunter,” a two-and-a-half-hour archival treasure trove of outtakes from the film
:: New documentary featuring interviews with producer Paul Gregory, Sanders, Jones, and author Jeffrey Couchman
:: New video interview with Simon Callow, author of Charles Laughton: A Difficult Actor
:: Clip from the The Ed Sullivan Show, in which cast members perform live a scene that was deleted from the film
F:: ifteen-minute episode of the BBC show Moving Pictures about the film
:: Archival interview with cinematographer Stanley Cortez
:: Gallery of sketches by author Davis Grubb
:: New video conversation between Gitt and film critic Leonard Maltin about Charles Laughton Directs “The Night of the Hunter”
:: Original theatrical trailer
:: PLUS: A booklet featuring essays by critics Terrence Rafferty and Michael Sragow

You see, the extras are substantial in amount and quality: One the most welcome features are Robert Gitt's documentary Charles Laughton Directs The Night of the Hunter, containing precious outtakes of the film, and the comments, interviews and contributions by first-rate Laughtonians and people who participated in the making of the film.

One still would have wished a few more items: I feel that Simon Callow's 1987 documentary about Charles Laughton would have been a fine addition to the luxuriant list of extras, and hopes that the interview can make up for it. I'd also liked that there was an extra disk containing the original soundtrack... Still, this upcoming release sounds like near perfection, and will certainly be welcomed by most.

I'd like to thank anyone who ever spread the love for this film, and particularly, those who joined this blog's campaign, which I hope helped at least to send the right vibes for the thing to happen, also to a few choice entities who have obviously been very thankful for their wax candles. And thanks indeed to the guys of Criterion, for taking the challenge and making a dream come true!

Night of the Hunter Collector's edition DVD? Hmmm...

Well, this might be interesting news: recently, Classicflix announced the release by MGM, of a two-disk Collector's edition of "The Night of the Hunter" in September. Apparently, this edition has been temporarily postponed.

I do hope, as Clark does in his blog, that this delay means that MGM is taking the necessary time to deliver us the DVD this truly great film deserves... the DVD we are all dreaming about!. You name it: comments by experts, the film taken from the very best possible copy, with the fascinating out-takes of the shooting, with Walt's Schummann's soundtrack (Soundtrack solo version plus Laughton reading alonside version would be cool!), etc... Many of us have already seen the film on screen, TV, VHS tape or MGM's own previous release, yes, we have this already: Now... now we want something better!

The buzz's all over!
Of course, such news have arisen quite a number of comments in other blogs and forums! Check them and spread the word! Send your own links! Keep your fingers crossed! Send your good vibrations! Keep on sending your petitions!

:: Filmbo's Chick Magnet
:: John Bowman in his blog Fin de cinema
:: Ken Jennings in his blog Confessions of a Trivial Mind
:: The Criterion Forum
:: The Home Theater Forum
:: Film Score Montly's forum

Documentary: "Charles Laughton Directs The Night of the Hunter"

(Article updated:Friday October 1st 2008: more people has had the lucky chance of seeing this, so I've added the links with their comments)

One of the possible features for a Special Edition DVD of "The Night of the Hunter" would be the more than eight hours of surviving rushes of the film. UCLA Film Preservation Officer Robert Gitt recently assembled a good part of this material in a documentary titled "Charles Laughton Directs The Night of the Hunter", which as one reviewer in the links below has put it, is like if a master class of film direction given by Laughton. While I think this documentary would deserve a DVD release by itself, I also believe that it would make a terrific extra for a Special Edition DVD.

The story of how this footage has reached our days is a curious one: as mentioned in the previous post, Laughton wasn't keen on breaking the concentration of his actors, so instead of yelling "cut!" he would keep the camera rolling and try for another take, instructing the actors as if in a theatrical rehearsal. This meant that a large amount of filmed material of documentary value was generated.

Most of this, of course, was to be deleted in the editing room, and, had Laughton followed the then prevailing habits of film making, all this footage would have been thrown to the bin. Instead, and in spite of the commercial failure of the film, he opted to keep it, as if he had hopes that the future would meet with more appreciative audiences. His act of faith has preserved the process of the making of the film as in a time capsule: those who love "The Night of the Hunter" may experience the same emotion watching these rushes as Howard Carter did when he discovered Tutankhamun's tomb.

While working for the American Film Institute (AFI) in the 70's. Gitt visited Elsa Lanchester in order to collect material related to “The Night of the Hunter” and she told him that he had boxes of outtakes at home and he could take them with him, too. This material was stored first by AFI and later by UCLA Film and Television Archive. Over the years, Gitt worked to re-assemble this material and finally produced a documentary with it in 2002.

Those lucky ones who have been able to see the film in special screenings in cinematheques around the world describe this documentary as an unmissable event. As mentioned in the previous post, this film provides filmed evidence against the stablished myths about Laughton hating children and not directing the kids in the film, and give a first-hand impression about Laughton's thoroughness at work, as well as his relationship with members of cast and crew.

Some interesting links:
:: Interview by Kelly Graml with Robert Gitt
:: An article in "The Guardian""The Hidden Hunter" by Robert Gitt
:: A brief article about the documentary in "the Guardian"
:: Article by Leonard Maltin
:: Article by F.X. Feeney in "L A Weekly"
:: Review by Peter Merholz
:: "The making of a mighty pantomime" Nigel Andrews' views about the documentary published in the Financial Times
:: Comments at Filmjourney.org
:: Joe D'Augustine gives us a report at Film Forno
:: Vertigo's Psycho tells us about Hunting Down Laughton's Haunting Night at And Your Little Blog, Too


Thanks to:
Pat Cronenberg for one very interesting link, and all the people who has seen this documentary and given their views online!

"Night of the Hunter DVD" campaign Index

There are a number of posts already queueing about this, so it's time to set an index:
:: Click here to find arguments to ask for a Spedial Edition DVD of the film.
:: Click here to e-mail your petition.
:: Click here to behold the list of the bold petitioners.

You can also find these other related posts:
:: Click here to read a review of Preston Neal Jones' " Heaven and Hell to Play With: The Filming of Night of the Hunter "
:: Click here to see a series of interesting online reviews and goodies related to the film.

Heaven and Hell to Play With: The Filming of Night of the Hunter

(Article updated: March 2008)
Starting here, I'll be posting short reviews about items related to "The Night of the Hunter", and I will start with a book which is a treat for all lovers of the film. Stay tuned for updates and future posts!

Title: Heaven and Hell to Play With: The Filming of Night of the Hunter
Author: Preston Neal Jones
Published by: Limelight Editions, 2002

Everything you ever wanted to know about "The Night of the Hunter", or nearly, can be found in the 400 pages of this book. It thoroughly covers the successive stages of the making of the film, from the preparatory work to its aftermath. The book presents a series of interviews -deftly weaved in chronological order- with members of cast and crew, among them: actors Robert Mitchum, Lillian Gish and Don Beddoe, Producer Paul Gregory, film photographer Stanley Cortez, art director Hyliard Brown, second unit director Terry Sanders, editor Robert Golden and writer Davis Grubb.

Davis Grubb's brother Louis, composer Walter Schumman's widow Sonya, and actor William Phipps, a good friend of Laughton and Mitchum, share reminiscences which provide further insight. The author has also sourced himself well in previous bibliography and multitude of archival sources. Apart from that, we find there fascinating graphic material, such as stills from the film, on-the-set snapshots, layouts ad preparatory drawings, illustrations et alia...

From this Kaleidoscopic presentation, we are close to getting the whole picture. All testimonials are presented in a way which doesn't interfere with the reader's own judgement, and the information uncovered brings a number of interesting news about the film and, in some stances, helps debunk some false myths about it.

For instance, the script has been traditionally attributed to James Agee, but he just produced a first script, the final draft being by Laughton, who opted, nonetheless, to give credit to Agee, who sadly died before the film was finished. This is no speculation, as proved by the abundant communication (written, verbal, graphic) between writer Davis Grubb and director Laughton, which shows that the director didn't limit himself to visualize someone else's words, but strived to gain further understanding in order to be able to give his best to his own personal rendering of the novel.

Also, it has been so far commonly assumed that the notions spread by Laughton's widow Elsa Lanchester "Laughton hated kids" and "couldn't bear to direct the child actors in the movie" were true to fact, but this is solidly disproved in the pages of the book, not merely from the words of those who were present in the set (which describe a good entente between director and children), but also from the filmed evidence that Preston Neal Jones got from witnessing laughton's direction of the children in the surviving rushes of the film (more about this in an upcoming post about Robert Gitt's documentary).

We get also fascinating glimpses of Laughton's directing methods: he didn't have the habit of shouting "cut" and the camera was kept rolling between diferent takes, a measure that helped the actors' concentration not to be broken. The film was shot in the silent-movie manner: Laughton gave directions to the actors as the scene was being shot (in post-production, Laughton's voice was, of course, cleared). Being an actor himself, Laughton's manners' towards cast and crew were starkly different from those he had suffered himself while working at the orders of some directors-dictators, autocrats of the set.

While he had a well-defined idea of what he wanted to do in the film, he also fostered creative input coming from his collaborators. Stanley Cortez, for instance, graphically described his fruitful exchange of ideas with Laughton as "mental intercourse". We can also pay heed to actor Peter Graves, who stated that working for Laughton, as compared what he had experienced working for John Ford, was like going from hell to heaven.

In the aftermath of "The Night of the Hunter", a tantalising account is given by Cortez and Sanders about the preparatory work of what would have been Laughton's second film, "The Naked and the Dead" (after Norman Mailer's novel), which reveal that he wanted to make it as visually and narratively innovative as "The Night of the Hunter" was. And we are also revealed that, had not the commercial failure of "The Night of the Hunter" put an end to his career as a director, that he was keen on directing a film adaptation of Thomas Wolfe's novel "You Can't Go Home Again": Laughton was an admirer of Wolfe ever since he was introduced to his work in the radio programmes he did for Norman Corwin and included excerpts of Wolfe's novels his reading tours.

This post is only a brief hint of the riches contained in the book... The reader is welcome to discover the rest of the treasure.

Some external links with info and reviews about the book:
:: Details from the publisher, Limelight Editions.
:: Review by Matthew Plouffe at Film Comment.
:: Review by Kendahl Cruver at bookreview.com
:: Details and reader's comments at Amazon.com
:: Capsule info at Turner Classic Movieswebsite

Would you like to see a special edition DVD of "The Night of the Hunter"? Join the campaign!!

I recently came across a thread in the IMDB message board: it was suggested there that a fine film such as Charles Laughton's only effort behind the camera, "The Night of the Hunter", would deserve to be published in DVD in a good special edition (a regular edition was already released some time ago by MGM/UA).

I think it is a very interesting idea... what about joining forces to present a huge list of petitions to a DVD publisher?

And what could that edition have? well, here's a little list for starters:
:: The film itself, from the recently restored print
:: UCLA Film Preservationist Robert Gitt's documentary "Charles Laughton Directs the Night of the Hunter"(made from deleted and filmed-on-the-set rushes)
:: Simon Callow's 1987 documentary about Laughton (a Yorkshire TV-ITV production)
:: Alternate soundtracks with comments about the film (by surviving members of Cast and Crew, or experts like Simon Callow, Preston Neal Jones or Robert Gitt)
:: Even though it has already been released in CD format maybe it would be a good idea to include the soundtrack with Laughton's narration as originally released.
::... And what about Walter Schumann's score by itself?
:: Other rushes not included in Robert Gitt's documentary
:: Stills from the film
:: Subtitles would also be appreciated (and make the DVD more marketable, ahem)
:: Etc, etc, etc... These are only but a few suggestions, but feel free to add other ideas.

Just imagine your dream DVD edition of "The Night of the Hunter"... Just imagine we can get it, if we ask for it: nobody else is going to do it for us, if we don't.

You can now, if you want to, send your petition

Gloria (playing Capità Enciam)

Post-Data
This is no idle petition... if we succeed, we can try and ask for more. Fellow Laughtonian Pierre Bellemare suggested that future campaigns could be aimed to ask for release of old recordings by Laughton, like "The Storyteller" or his adaptation of Shaw, "Don Juan in Hell" (the recent CD release by Deutsche Grammophon of a Charles Laughton/Ronald Colman Dickens recording suggests that such items have a public)... I would personally add to the list a re-masterized release of the old programmes Laughton did for Norman Corwin: a true delicatessen

E-mail your petition:

Anyone interested in joining forces to ask for the release of a Special Edition DVD of "The Night of the Hunter" is welcome to e-mail a petition.

Please state the name with which you want to appear in the list. You may complement your name with your occupation, or with a geographical reference: alternatively, in the case of those who have a blog, it would be enough with the name of the blog (I will add a link to it if so wished).

You may now e-mail your petition if that is your wish.

E-mail update (Monday September 25th 2006)
If the link above doesn't work in your computer, cut and paste this address to e-mail your petition: campaign.rootingxlaughton@gmail.com

List of petitionaries:

(Last update: Saturday October 10th 2009)

Alicia(La linterna mágica)
Awesome Girl(Austin, Texas, USA Antsy Pants)
Mykal Banta (Florida, USA)
Jean Bass (Cleveland, Ohio, USA)
Pattie Bauer
Ed Bayer & wife (Israel)
Phil Beard (Devon, UK)
Pierre Bellemare (Canada)
Martin Becker (Mainz, Germany)
Wouter van den Berg (Amsterdam, The Netherlands) (Believe the Best, Expect the Worst)
Even Bjerkelien (Lillehammer, Norway)
Laura Boyes, North Carolina Museum of Art Film Curator
Dan Britton (Silver Spring, Maryland, USA)
Mario Calandrella (Italia)
Stewart Chase (San Francisco, USA)
Gwen Christie (Australia)
Bill Coleman (Brooklyn, NY, USA)
Franco Costanzo (Italia)
Vasco Corisco (Lisboa, Portugal)
Pat Cronenberg (Belgium)
Carsten Czarnecki (Munich)
Mark Dawson (Jersey, Channel Islands)
Dev Donnelly
Linda Edwards, Webmistress of the Official Charles Laughton Website
Mary Engelhart (USA)
David Ehrenstein (Strange Twilight Urges )
Olivier Eyquem (waldolydecker.blog.lemonde.fr)
Pierre Fablet (France)
Alan Ferber (USA)
Laure Fernandez (France)
Rod Filbrandt (chowderheadbazoo.typepad.com)
Greg (No Stripes)
Claudio Goldini (Argentina)
William Gambell (Japan)
Eduardo Gavín (Portugal) (Café del artista)
Guely of Sweden (Sweden, Guelyland)
Víctor Guerrero Plumas de Caballo (Barcelona, Spain)
Chadd Harbold (New York, USA)
Ehud Havazelet (University of Oregon)
Ann L. Hemenway
Hunter's Niece
Scott Hurst (Canada)
Paul Kelly (Australia)
Jesse Laughton (Gilbert, AZ, USA)
Maverick (Blogger denizen)
marcbranches (La linterna mágica)
Rick Lucey
Mark Maynard (markmaynard.com)
Marty and Sally (Comcast)
Caspar Milquetoast (Scotland)
Rosalind Mitchell (Enitharmon’s Cave)
Mary Moretti (Warwick, RI)
Adil Ouazzani (Montreal, Canada)
Patrick (justshowstogoyou.blogspot.com)
Clark Perry (Los Angeles, CA, USA) (Clarkblog)
Gloria Porta (Rooting for Laughton)
Elisenda Roca (Barcelona)
Esteban Roldán (Málaga)
Sally Rushbrook (London, UK)
Josh Ryan (Embracing The Boogyman)
Michael Sweeney
Tiziana (Italy) Webmistress of the Robert Mitchum Italian Website
Messrob Torikian, digital artist (Los Angeles, California, USA)
Ola Torstensson (Malmo, Sweden)
Kevin Tosolini (Castroville, CA)
William Turgeon (Maryland, USA)
Janet Vaughn (Hollis, NH)
Chris West (California, USA)
Xavier (Australia)
Fred Zaidman (Los Angeles)