Continuing with my quest to establish where or not Charles Laughton ever made a bad movie, I recently came, again, to this - one of my all time favourite films. I remember cowering behind the sofa as a child when this film came on television late in the evening. It all centres around a robber who has hidden $10,000 somewhere. His jailbird pal "Powell" (Robert Mitchum) is out, masquerading as a puritanical preacher, and determined to befriend the man's family and to scoop the loot. Shelley Winters is the naive, now widow, "Willa" who falls hook, line and sinker for the wiles and charms of this shrewd and duplicitous man - and that does not go at all well for her! Soon the children "John" (Billy Chapin) and his sister "Pearl" (Sally Jane Bruce) are in mortal peril. Can they escape his clutches? Where is the cash? Is there any cash? For me, this is easily the best effort on screen from Mitchum, he just oozes a malevolence that is palpable. The two kids, too, are on great form - managing to deliver performances that stay on the right side of petrified hysteria as we all begin to appreciate the accumulating sense of menace. A big screen on a rainy night with a drop of red wine and this is as good as cinema gets. The pacing of the story is accomplished, the audio editing is effective, the use of a gently potent script and a cast that enthral make it all captivating. It wasn't even nominated for an Oscar. Outrageous.
