Talk:The Night of the Hunter (film)

Not Noir
i've removed the references here and in the "list of noir films" to this film as a "film noir". reasons are stated in the last paragraph under "plot". ironic that the second reference given in the article is to an online piece titled "Night of the Hunter: Not Noir"; neither the empire films nor roger ebert review's use "noir" to describe it. stylistically and in terms of its moral parable the film has much more resonance with F.W. Murnau's "Sunrise". NOTH is a unique film and should be approached without knee jerk labels, particularly a label applied to crime films about adults behaving badly with other adults. Macevoy (talk) 06:45, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Preacher Harry Powell
It's a somewhat subtle point, but I would object to characterizations in this article that Harry Powell is "masquerading" as a preacher, or pretending to be a preacher. It's a significant point of the character that he is in fact a man of God - at least in his own twisted mind. He might not be wanting to tell people what else he does, but he has himself thinking that he's doing the Lord's work. Not just Harry Powell but THE LORD hates those perfume smelling things.4.89.130.49 18:36, 18 January 2007 (UTC)


 * I replaced "masquerades" with "presents himself" as it seems more NPOV. Doctormatt 19:37, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Finger tattoos
In the influences/references section, there are a number of examples of words tattooed on fingers in other movies, etc. I wonder if these are, in fact, all related to The Night of the Hunter. That is, they have a common element to the movie, but that doesn't necessarily imply influence by, or reference of, the film. It seems to me that just having words tattooed on fingers is not enough evidence to support inclusion in this article. What do others think? Doctormatt 23:39, 17 August 2007 (UTC)


 * I think you're right, but that is the case with virtually every allusion to any work of art. I changed the sentence opening that section to accommodate the possibility that the references are not directly derivative (I believe they're all at the very least indirectly derivative).  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Burlapbra (talk • contribs) 17:21, 23 September 2007 (UTC)


 * This is why we need better information on allusions. For instance, a quote from a director or writer saying that they are a fan of TNOTH, and that's why they have a character in their film with finger tattoos - that would be a good piece of information to include here.  Note that the threshold for inclusion on wikipedia is verifiability, not truth.  While I can verify that a character in a movie has finger tattoos by watching the movie, I cannot verify that this is an allusion by simply watching the movie, and so it is not valid to be included in this article without further citations.  In addition, there is the problem of original research.  Doctormatt 18:21, 23 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Yeah, more backup would definitely make the article more verifiable, but insisting that each allusion be totally verifiable would necessarily excluse some of those indirectly derivative allusions, which would ultimately make the article less informative. I mean, I don't think that any of the alleged allusions are misleading or harmful in any way.--76.30.161.240 (talk) 23:05, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:Nightofthehunterposter.jpg
Image:Nightofthehunterposter.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

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BetacommandBot 21:37, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

Influence and References removed
I have removed this section for being against WP:OR, WP:EMBED, and WP:TRIVIA.--SeizureDog (talk) 23:48, 11 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I have restored them. If you think some of the entries are trivial, edit it down, don't delete the list wholesale. Ed Fitzgerald (unfutz)  (talk / cont)  20:36, 17 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I don't think that some of the entries are trivial; I think that all of the entries are trivial. I read every entry, and there is nothing to work into the main content of the article. Aside from that, none of the entries are given citations and many are dubious that they are actually a reference to the film. WP:V states that such unreferenced material should be "be removed, aggressively, unless it can be sourced." Therefor, if you don't think it's trivia, then find sources for them. Otherwise, Wiki policy is on the side of removal.--SeizureDog (talk) 20:47, 17 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I agree with SeizureDog. This section is very bad form.  I support its removal.  Doctormatt (talk) 22:47, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

A picture of the LOVE and HATE across his knuckles
Do you think this would be beneficial to the article?--GermanicSnake (talk) 17:34, 15 July 2012 (UTC)


 * To clarify the question, would a picture of the tattoos meet this guideline: "Non-free content is used only if its presence would significantly increase readers' understanding of the topic, and its omission would be detrimental to that understanding"? This might be a case for adding a non-free image; I'm not convinced one way or the other, but I'm also not that familiar with the film. —C.Fred (talk) 17:41, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

This film is where it actually comes from and it's world-wide known this tattoo, plus I think it looks good on the article and not just the front cover of the film.--GermanicSnake (talk) 13:53, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

night of the hunter
what happened to the money 98.46.117.190 (talk) 04:12, 19 August 2022 (UTC)

Ben Harper's Motive
The current synopsis reads

> Ben Harper, an impoverished father who killed two men in a bank robbery for $10,000 so his children would not go hungry

which makes it sound like his children were actually in some danger of going hungry. We don't actually see this in any way, nor do we see him being particularly impoverished. He does talk about seeing a lot of poverty and swearing that this wouldn't happen to his children, but it seems like it's an open question whether this isn't just a lie he tells himself to justify the robbery and murders, as opposed to a requirement for his children's survival. I mean, personally it seems like a lie to me (either that or the movie's own depiction of those children's condition is somehow non-canon), but we shouldn't write the plot summary as if it definitely isn't. Dingsuntil (talk) 17:57, 10 March 2023 (UTC)

"Classic"
"Over time, The Night of the Hunter has been reassessed and is now an undisputed classic."

Is it ok to call something a "classic" as a factual statement in an encyclopedia? Isn't it more of a subjective thing rather than saying "it is widely regarded as a classic"? Is it against NPOV? Also: "undisputed"? Isn't it unprovable that literally every single person on the planet likes the movie? I'm asking out of curiosity. Dornwald (talk) 02:11, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

Sequel
I'm surprised Hollywood hasn't tried to make a sequel since the reverend survived. They make sequels to everything else. There was even talk of a No Country for Old Men sequel with Anton Chigurrgh at one point. 71.251.236.155 (talk) 00:29, 2 June 2024 (UTC)