Ever see The Night Of the Hunter (1955)? At the end what happens to the precher/stepdad?

Question

I know he gets arrested, but does the old farm lady shoot him or something? and then he runs into the barn.

Answer 1

"The Night of the Hunter (1955) is a truly compelling, haunting, and frightening classic masterpiece thriller-fantasy, and the only film ever directed by the great British actor Charles Laughton. The American gothic, Biblical tale of greed, innocence, seduction, sin and corruption was adapted for the screen by famed writer-author James Agee (and Laughton, but without screen credit). Although one of the greatest American films of all time, the imaginatively-chilling, experimental, sophisticated work was idiosyncratic, film noirish, avante garde, dream-like expressionistic and strange, and it was both ignored and misunderstood at the time of its release. Originally, it was a critical and commercial failure.

Robert Mitchum gave what some consider his finest performance in a precedent-setting, unpopular, and truly terrifying role as the sleepy-eyed, diabolical, dark-souled, self-appointed serial killer/Preacher with psychotic, murderous tendencies while in pursuit of $10,000 in cash. Lillian Gish played his opposite - a saintly good woman who provided refuge for the victimized children.

The disturbing, complex story was based on the popular, best-selling 1953 Depression-era novel of the same name by first-time writer Davis Grubb, who set the location of his novel in the town of Moundsville, WV, where the West Virginia Penitentiary (also mentioned in the film) was located. Grubb lived in nearby Clarksburg as a young teenager.

[Robert Mitchum's role was inspired by the real-life character of Harry Powers, known nationally as "the Bluebeard of Quiet Dell" (outside of Clarksburg) and West Virginia's most famous mass murderer, who was hanged on March 18, 1932, at the West Virginia Penitentiary. Powers was convicted of killing Asta B. Eicher, a widow, along with her three children, and another widow, Dorothy Lemke of Massachusetts in the early 1930s. He may also have killed a traveling salesman. The menacing figure of The Preacher inspired such characters as The Tall Man (Angus Scrimm) in Phantasm (1979) and (especially) Mr. Dark (Jonathan Pryce) in Something Wicked This Way Comes (1983) who similarly stalk their young prey.]"

What a creepy film that is - I saw it back in 1955 and I've been haunted by Mitchum's terrifying character ever since:
Rachel summons the children to gather in the kitchen. As the camera views an owl sweeping down and attacking a defenseless rabbit (offscreen), Rachel observes, thinking of small creatures and children as well, in a famous line:


It's a hard world for little things.
She lines the five children up as she marches back and forth in front of them with her shotgun, telling them the Bible story of the Massacre of the Innocents - King Herod's massacre of babies to kill the promised Messiah. When she sees Powell's shadow inside the house in the living room, and his voice quering: "Figured I was gone, huh?" she sends the children to safety upstairs, cocks her shotgun, aims, and asks: "What do you want?" Powell's voice is heard in the darkness:

I want them kids!

When she warns that she will shoot after counting to three, he pops up right in front of her. She blasts him with her shotgun, after which he runs out of the house, yelping, shrieking and howling like a madman and wounded wolf, while grabbing his behind. Apparently, he is not badly hurt, but the brutal coward has actually been wounded in the shoulder (an identical wound suffered by Ben Harper). Then, she phones the State Troopers to come and arrest the Preacher, telling an officer: "I've got something trapped in my barn."
In the kitchen the next morning, she tells John that children are mankind at its strongest:
"You know, when you're little, you have more endurance than God is ever to grant you again. Children are humanity's strongest. They abide.
Sirens sound and the police arrive, dragging out wounded Harry Powell and arresting him for the murder of Willa Harper - the film's second arrest scene. As they throw him to the ground and start to handcuff him, John remembers the traumatic last time he saw his natural, 'good' father when he was arrested, and he reacts similarly to the arrest of his 'evil' stepfather. He clutches his stomach in pain, crying out: "Don't! Don't. Don't!" Then, he grabs Pearl's doll from her hands, rushes over to the policeman, and pummels and flogs the head of his captured and arrested father over and over again with the limp female doll. John screams out as the hidden/stolen money flies out of the ripped doll's body to fall at the feet of his stepfather. He has discovered that money isn't important enough anymore to justify their suffering:

Here! Here! Take it back. Take it back. I don't want it. It's too much. Here! Here!

[The arrest of Powell coincides with the last female body to be split open.] John collapses, and is gently carried inside by Rachel.

A trial scene follows, attended by the Spoons and other neighbors who have come to town for the event. They both shout: "Lynch him. Lynch him. Bluebeard. Twenty-five wives, and he killed every last one of 'em." The experience on the witness stand is too much for John - he is unable (or refuses) to testify. But Powell is still sentenced to be hanged for all the women he has killed. Rachel takes the children to a nearby restaurant, where they witness the formation of a lynch mob led by the Spoons, claiming that the children - "the poor little lambs" - are the ones that Powell sinned against and wronged.

To protect her wards from the temptations and violence of the physical world, Rachel steers her brood/flock of children clear of the axe-wielding mob. She marches through town like a mother quail with her young scurrying behind. Rachel retrieves Ruby from outside the jail, where the young girl has gone because she mistakenly thinks the mob is going to free the Preacher - and she wants to help. She protests against Rachel: "I love him. You think he's like them others. You were so mad, you shot him." The children follow after Rachel in single-file, Mother Goose-style, down the street. Powell is led out the side door of the jail by the police, to be taken away in a car to the penitentiary for his execution."

Answer 2

Well, no. But simply on the grounds that a person is good hung does no longer imply he has any proposal what to do with it. It is not the scale of the ocean, its the movement of the sea...simply sayin' I like boxer briefs the great, however there may be not anything sexier than bokers! Not into tighty whities.