The Night of the Hunter

HEAD CLOSE-UP -- JOHN

                    JOHN
               (under his breath)
          Blue men.

GROUP SHOT -- TROOPERS IN BACKGROUND

                    A TROOPER
          Ben Harper!

                    BEN
          I'm goin' now children.  Goodbye.

BEN backs away from his CHILDREN, raising his hands, gun in one hand.  We
PULL BACK a little, enlarging the GROUP SHOT and the role of the TROOPERS in
it.

                    TROOPER
          Drop that gun, Harper.  We don't want them kids
          hurt.

TWO TROOPERS approach BEN from behind.

                    BEN
          Just mind what you swore, son.  Mind, boy!

CLOSE SHOT -- JOHN
He runs forward and clasps his stomach, with his mouth open.

MEDIUM SHOT -- BEN AND TROOPERS -- JOHN'S VIEWPOINT
One TROOPER smacks the back of BEN's head with a pistol barrel.

CLOSE SHOT -- JOHN

                    JOHN
               (shouting; a sickly smile)
          Don't!

MEDIUM SHOT -- BEN AND TROOPERS -- AS BEFORE
Another TROOPER, with a pistol barrel, knocks the pistol from BEN's lifted
hand.

CLOSE SHOT -- JOHN

                    JOHN
               (shouting)
          Don't!

BEN AND TROOPERS
BEN sinks to his knees as both men, and two others from the front, close in
on him.

HEAD CLOSE UP -- JOHN

                    JOHN
          Dad!

He takes in the GROUP with his mouth open.

O.S., we hear the slamming of car doors, and car starting away.

FULL SHOT -- JOHN'S VIEWPOINT -- THE CARS
They drive away fast in road dust.

THREE-SHOT -- THE CHILDREN AND WILLA HARPER
Carrying a shopping bag, their mother, WILLA, runs up from BACKGROUND between
the CHILDREN, looking always to cars o.s.

CLOSE SHOT -- WILLA
She has a rich body.

RESUME THREE-SHOT
PEARL comes to her and she picks up PEARL and the doll;  JOHN, laden with his
oath, walks quickly into the house.  WILLA does a bewildered take, then looks
again towards the cars o.s.

                                        LAP DISSOLVE TO

INT. COURTROOM -- CLOSE THREE-SHOT -- JUDGE AND CLERK, OVER BEN

                    JUDGE
          Ben Harper, it is the sentence of this Court
          that for the murder of Ed Smiley and Corey
          South, you be hanged by the neck until you are
          dead, and may God have mercy on your soul.

                                        LAP DISSOLVE TO

FULL SHOT -- THE MOUNDSVILLE PENITENTIARY
Same view as before but now it is NIGHT.

                                        LAP DISSOLVE TO

INT. BEN'S CELL -- NIGHT -- CLOSE DOWN-SHOT -- BEN
He lies on his back, chuckling and murmuring indistinctly in his sleep.

                    BEN
          I got you all buffaloed!  You ain't never gonna
          git it outen me; not none o' you!

                    PREACHER'S VOICE
               (o.s.., very low)
          Where, Ben?  Where?  Where?

                    BEN
               (distinctly)
          And a little child shall lead them.

CLOSE TWO-SHOT -- NEW ANGLE -- BEN, THEN PREACHER
BEN lies in profile.  From the bunk above, the face of PREACHER stretches
down into the SHOT, upside down, snake-like.

                    PREACHER
               (softly)
          Come on, boy: tell me.

BEN awakes, sees PREACHER, and hits him so hard in the face that he falls
from bunk to floor.  PREACHER collects himself into a squat, nursing his
face, BEN sits up in bed.

                    PREACHER
               (with wholesome dignity)
          Ben, I'm a Man of God.

                    BEN
          Tryin' to make me talk about it in my sleep!

                    PREACHER
          No, Ben.

                    BEN
          What'd I say?
               (he grabs Preacher by the
                throat and shakes him)
          What?  What?  What?  What?

                    PREACHER
               (choking)
          You was quotin' Scripture.  You said -- you
          said, "And a little child shall lead them."

                    BEN
          Hm!

He lies back, amused.  PREACHER sits on the bedside; manner of a parson
visiting the sick.

                    PREACHER
               (gravely)
          You killed two men, Ben Harper.

                    BEN
          That's right, Preacher.  I robbed that bank
          because I got tired of seein' children roamin'
          the woodlands without food, children roamin'
          the highways in this year of Depression,
          children sleepin' in old abandoned car bodies
          on junk-heaps; and I promised myself I'd never
          see the day when my youngins'd want.

                    PREACHER
          With that ten thousand dollars I could build a
          Tabernacle that'd make the Wheeling Island
          Tabernacle look like a chicken-house!

                    BEN
          Would you have free candy for the kids,
          Preacher?

He picks up and wads a sock.

                    PREACHER
          Think of it, Ben!  With that cursed, bloodied
          gold!

                    BEN
          How come you got that stick-knife hid in your
          bed-blankets, Preacher?

                    PREACHER
          I come not with Peace, but with a Sword.

                    BEN
          You, Preacher?

PREACHER gets and pockets the knife.

                    PREACHER
          That Sword has served me through many an evil
          time, Ben Harper.

                    BEN
          What religion do you profess, Preacher?

                    PREACHER
          The religion the Almighty and me worked out
          betwixt us.

                    BEN
               (contemptuously)
          I'll bet.

                    PREACHER
          Salvation is a last-minute business, boy.

                    BEN
               (sock near mouth)
          Keep talkin', Preacher.

He wads the sock into his mouth and lies back, sardonic.

                    PREACHER
               (his voice fading into Dissolve)
          You reckon the Lord wouldn't change his mind
          about you if...

                                        DISSOLVE TO

EXT. PENITENTIARY -- NIGHT

                                        DISSOLVE TO

INSERT -- PREACHER'S HANDS
They rest on sill of cell window, the lettered fingers legible.  The right
hand is lettered L-O-V-E.  The hands open, disclosing his open knife.  They
close over it.

CLOSE SHOT -- PREACHER, AT CELL WINDOW
His eyes lift from his hands, heavenward.  Moonlight on his face.  He prays,
quietly.

                    PREACHER
          Lord, You sure knowed what You was doin' when
          You brung me to this very cell at this very
          time. A man with ten thousand dollars hid
          somewheres, and a widder in the makin'.

                                        DISSOLVE TO

EXT. PENITENTIARY COURTYARD -- NIGHT
Same shot as before, but now, prison lights are on: and a man, a prison
GUARD, waits close inside door.  BART THE HANGMAN joins him with a silent
salute.  BART wears a hard derby.

EXT. PENITENTIARY -- THE DOOR (REVERSE)
They walk in silence into MEDIUM, MOVING SHOT, the GUARD talkative, BART
reluctant to talk.

The Penitentiary recedes in b.g.

                    GUARD
          Any trouble?

                    BART
          No.

                    GUARD
          He was a cool one, that Harper.  Never broke.

                    BART
          He carried on some; kicked.

EXT. BART'S HOUSE -- MEDIUM SHOT -- BART AND THE GUARD
On porch, by door, is a doll's perambulator.  BART and GUARD walk into the
SHOT.

                    GUARD
          He never told about the money.

                    BART
               (walking up steps)
          No.

                    GUARD
          What do you figure he done with it?

                    BART
               (turning, at door)
          He took the secret with him when I dropped him.

The GUARD leaves the shot; BART goes in.

INT. BART'S HALLWAY -- CLOSE SHOT -- BART
He hangs up his coat and hat.  Across this his wife speaks o.s.; a lighted
door is ajar at rear of hall.  A clatter of dishes and pans o.s.

                    BART'S WIFE (o.s.)
          That you, Bart?  Supper's waitin'.

BART just nods and, tiptoeing, walks into a door next the kitchen and snaps
on a light and turns on water o.s.  His wife comes out of the kitchen and
goes in.

INT. BART'S BATHROOM -- CLOSE TWO-SHOT -- BART AND WIFE
He is washing his hands in thick lather.  Passing, she pecks his cheek and,
as we PAN, looks into the next room.  He looks past her, and we see two small
CHILDREN asleep in a big brass bed.  BART registers, turns again to the
basin, and we PAN them back into the original TWO-SHOT.

                    BART
               (low)
          Mother: sometimes I think it might be better if
          I was to quit my job as guard.

His WIFE's eyes go sharp and quiet.

                    WIFE
               (low)
          You're always this way when there's a hangin'. 
          You never have to be there.

BART rinses his hands.  A sigh; he takes up the towel.

                    BART
          Sometimes I wish I was back at the mine.

                    WIFE
          And leave me a widow after another blast like
          the one in '24?  Not on your life, old mister!

He looks at her for a moment.  She goes out.  He looks o.s. towards his
CHILDREN.  He goes into their room on tiptoe.

MEDIUM SHOT -- BART
He approaches his children, across whose bed we SHOOT without yet seeing
them.  He comes into MEDIUM CLOSE-UP.  As he leans and we TILT DOWN, he
extends his large hands.

CLOSE DOWNWARD TWO-SHOT -- HIS CHILDREN
Two rose-and-gold little GIRLS lie in sleep; BART's hands enter the SHOT and
gently rearrange the covers so that their mouths and throats are free.  We
watch for a moment more, the two sleeping faces.

                                        LAP DISSOLVE TO

HEAD CLOSE-UP -- BART, HOVERING HIS CHILDREN

                    CHILDREN'S VOICES
               (o.s., chanting)
          Hing, hang, hung.  See what the Hangman done!

                                        LAP DISSOLVE TO

EXT. CRESAP'S LANDING -- DAY
We are in Peacock Alley.  The tree-shaded dirt street of a small, one-street
river town; a picturesque, mid-19th century remnant of the old river
civilization, which general Progress has left behind.  Chiefly we see, in
this order:  A schoolhouse (on far side of street); Miz Cunningham's second-
hand shop; a Grange House sporting a poster for a Western movie; Spoon's Ice
Cream Parlor.  At the end of the street, down the river-bank, is a brick
wharf and Uncle Birdie's wharf-boat.  In b.g. and in passing, suggestions of
sleepy small-town life.

From the HEAD CLOSE-UP of BART the Hangman o.s. chanting, we

                                        LAP DISSOLVE TO

HEAD CLOSE-UP -- JOHN HARPER
Chanting voices o.s. complete "see what the Hangman done!"

                                        PULL BACK TO

CLOSE PULLING TWO-SHOT -- PEARL AND JOHN
They stroll barefoot down the empty dirt sidewalk.  They look towards the
voices, PEARL friendly, JOHN hostile.

MEDIUM SHOT -- THE CHILDREN, OVER JOHN AND PEARL
Several, within the door of the Schoolhouse, stick their heads around the
edge.  They chant at the HARPER CHILDREN.  Another next the door, is drawing
something on the wall.

                    CHILDREN
               (chanting)
          Hung, hang, hing!  See the Robber swing!

OVER these lines we CUT briefly to --

CLOSER SHOT -- THE CHILDREN
... chanting, drawing.  The ARTIST completes in chalk, a large simple sketch
of a man hanging from gallows.  As the verse ends we CUT TO

MEDIUM SHOT -- THE CHILDREN, OVER JOHN AND PEARL
They look towards OUR CHILDREN; JOHN pays them no attention.  The drawing is
revealed.  JOHN takes PEARL's hand.  The other CHILDREN giggle.

                    CHILDREN
               (chanting)
          Hing, hang, hung!  Now my song is done!

Between lines one and two JOHN turns away from them into --

CLOSE TWO-SHOT -- JOHN AND PEARL -- THROUGH WINDOW
We SHOOT them through the window of MIZ CUNNINGHAM's second-hand store.  The
back of a watch is silhouetted large in FOREGROUND; JOHN's eyes instantly fix
on it; in b.g. the SCHOOL-CHILDREN finish their song and vanish, giggling,
into the schoolhouse.  We hear the ticking of the watch.

INSERT -- THE WATCH
A watch with a moving sweep-hand, ticking.

CLOSE TWO-SHOT -- JOHN AND PEARL

                    PEARL
          Are you goin' to buy it, John?

No answer.  JOHN's eyes are fixed on the watch.  OVER a shop door-bell we
hear:

                    MIZ CUNNINGHAM'S VOICE (o.s.)
          Uh-Hawwww!

They glance toward her.

MEDIUM SHOT -- MIZ CUNNINGHAM
Fantastically dirty and fantastically dressed, she hustles to them and we PAN
her into a THREE-SHOT.  She talks like a Tidewater Cockatoo.

                    MIZ CUNNINGHAM
               (continuing)
          So your Mommy's keepin' you out of school! 
          Poor little lambs!

PEARL watches her; JOHN the watch.

                    MIZ CUNNINGHAM
          And how is your poor, poor mother?

                    JOHN
          She's at Spoon's Ice Cream Parlor.

                    MIZ CUNNINGHAM
               (she snuffles)
          The Lord tends you both these days!

JOHN doesn't take his eyes off the watch.

CLOSE SHOT -- JOHN
His eyes are fixed on the watch o.s.

                    MIZ CUNNINGHAM'S VOICE (o.s.)
          Didn't they never find out what your father
          done with all that money he stole?

Eyes as before till "money," then he looks up towards her.