A Second Look: 'The Night of the Hunter'

The only film directed by Charles Laughton gets the deluxe Criterion treatment.In 1955, when "The Night of the Hunter" opened to mixed reviews and poor box office, the film was already a throwback: steeped in the luxuriant gloom of German Expressionism and the heightened poetics of D.W. Griffith (and set to boot in rural Depression-era America). But in reaching back to the primordial enchantment and promise of silent-era cinema, director Charles Laughton created something timeless — "a nightma...

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