An itinerant preacher ingratiates his way into a rural, single mother's household, privately seeking a fortune her late, ex-convict husband has supposedly hidden there, and willing to dispense with his new bride and her children to secure the money. Psychological gamesmanship explodes into violence in this strange, dream-like, American fairy tale, an iconoclastic masterpiece and Charles Laughton's only directed work for the screen.
35mm, b/w, 93 min. Production: Paul Gregory Productions. Distribution: United Artists Corp. Producer: Paul Gregory. Director: Charles Laughton. Based on the book by Davis Grubb. Screenwriter: James Agee, Charles Laughton. Cinematographer: Stanley Cortez. Editor: Robert Golden. Composer: Walter Schumann. With: Robert Mitchum, Shelley Winters, Lillian Gish, Billy Chapin, Sally Jane Bruce.
