MovieChat Forums > The Night of the Hunter (1955) Discussion > It was a box office failure and here's w...

It was a box office failure and here's why.

posted 7 years ago by Takeshi-K
5 replies | jump to latest

This is a brilliant movie. Unfortunately it was a box office failure in its day, its failure made Charles Laughton swear never to direct another film and he never did despite continuing to act. I never knew why it failed until I read this on the TCM website

"The picture failed so miserably at the box office and that Laughton was, as many people observed, destroyed by its poor reception. Gregory said the main problem during production was United Artists executive Bert Allenberg, who cast Mitchum in the higher-profile, big-budget picture Not as a Stranger (1955), knowing full well director Stanley Kramer planned to start shooting before The Night of the Hunter was finished. The action disrupted the filming, forcing Mitchum to return to Laughton's set on Sundays while they shot around him the rest of the week. Those involved have also said United Artists disrupted the film's chances at the box office by burying it while heavily promoting Not as a Stranger."

Source: http://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/17678/The-Night-of-the-Hunter/articles.html Webpage compiled by Rob Nixon & Jeff Stafford.

[–] loughsprng 7 years ago

And isn't it ironic that today Not As A Stranger isn't considered a classic any where near what Night Of The Hunter is.

Don't get me wrong - I like Not As A Stranger and it has some really good actors in it, but I don't enjoy it near to the degree that I do Night Of The Hunter.

It's amazing this film was handled so badly when it originally came out. Mr. Laughton and all those involved in the making of this fine film deserved better.

[–] modica (4169) 6 years ago

Yes, but movies like this aren't usually appreciated until years after their initial release.

[–] MissMargoChanning (6630) 6 years ago

❤️️
Sad but true.
Funny thing is, I never even heard of Not as a Stranger. I'll have to check that out.

[–] snepts (11123) 5 years ago

This is taken from a hockey article, oddly enough:

[Remember "Fight Club?" Of course you do. It was one of the seminal films of 1999, an enduring classic that functions both as a satire of consumer culture and an astute comment on masculinity.

You know what else it was? A flop. It's the 30th highest-grossing movie of Brad Pitt's career. It was the 54th highest-grossing movie of 1999, behind such cinematic treasures as "Inspector Gadget" and "Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo."]

This is how I view The Night Of The Hunter.

[–] Otter (24464) 4 years ago

That's sad, but it really does explain why Laughton chose never to direct again.

Basically, he made a really great film on no budget... but ended up getting shafted by studio politics. Since it could happen again with any film he ever made, and there was no way for him to get any film he might make to the public without the aid of a studio and distributors... why put himself through that kind of misery again. He loved acting, he was damn good at it, he made an excellent living at it... and when he stuck to acting nobody fucked him over.