Thanks Gloria for the interesting comments (Blog: 50 top films) on "The Night of the Hunter" and for the Guardian article which I read with great interest.
I believe that James Agee was the scriptwriter of the film; I wonder if he gets enough credit. I wonder if this was the only fiction film he wrote. I know he wrote a script about workers in the south of America but can't recall the title.
I once read a book of film criticisms of his. Very good. One thing I recall frrom that book was a tale about W.C.Fields. He received a letter from a big producer of a film he was working on and in the letter the producer said that some of the girls on the set had complained about Fields' behaviour towards them. Fields got his maid to write an answer to the porducer; she wrote "Mr Fields and I read your letter and did we laugh."
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Graham, thanks for reding the article: I think it clears some pre-conceived ideas about the film and its making (and, generally, I think that many people judges Laughton on such pre-conceived ideas)
I haven't read the Agee book on criticism, though it's certainly on my "to read" list, as everyone who has read his reviews thinks highly of them.
As for the script of "Night of the Hunter", I have to say that whenever I read a comment or review of teh film, Agee's name as author of the script comes nearly always in teh very first paragraph, so, as far as this film is concerned, I think he gets fairly credited.
About teh story of the script there have been diverse (and contradictory stories), possibly the most famous one being one by producer Paul Gregory, who said that Agee's original script was of telephone-guide dimensions, and the final script was the work of Laughton.
From recent books on the subject whose authors have done new research on teh subject, the story of the genesis of the script seems to be teh following: Agee did indeed come with a rather long first draft of the script, which was hard to fit within a 90 minute long film. Therefore, Agee, along with with Laughton (Laughton was in touch with Davis Grubb (the author of the novel, and there was a rather big amount of written/telephoned communication between them), to edit the original script to its final shape. Agee asked Laughton to share the credits, which Laughton refused as he considered Agee was the one deserving the credits.
James Agee is also the author of the memorable "The African Queen".
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