Child actor who memorably played the 12-year-old John Harper in the 1955 film The Night of the Hunter, starring Robert Mitchum
The acting career of Billy Chapin, who has died aged 72, ended 57 years ago, though his memorable performance in The Night of the Hunter (1955) has become an indelible part of film history. Charles Laughton’s only film as director is an eerily beautiful parable of good and evil, its bold visual style derived from the rural dramas of Dw Griffith, German Expressionism and American folk art.
Most of Chapin’s previous roles, where he displayed a gravitas, contrary to the label “cute” often affixed to child stars, persuaded Laughton to cast him in The Night of the Hunter. As Laughton told Davis Grubb, the author of the original novel, “What I want is a flexible child, and the boy is exactly that … he has innate ability to understand the construction of a scene,...
The acting career of Billy Chapin, who has died aged 72, ended 57 years ago, though his memorable performance in The Night of the Hunter (1955) has become an indelible part of film history. Charles Laughton’s only film as director is an eerily beautiful parable of good and evil, its bold visual style derived from the rural dramas of Dw Griffith, German Expressionism and American folk art.
Most of Chapin’s previous roles, where he displayed a gravitas, contrary to the label “cute” often affixed to child stars, persuaded Laughton to cast him in The Night of the Hunter. As Laughton told Davis Grubb, the author of the original novel, “What I want is a flexible child, and the boy is exactly that … he has innate ability to understand the construction of a scene,...
- 12/26/2016
- by Ronald Bergan
- The Guardian - Film News
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