>> It's a great pity that Charles Laughton (the director) did not make
>> any more movies (this was his only one)

I think his inability to get beyond a sort of disingenuous homosexual ethic
convinced the studio he had too limited a vision to be a great director:

- heterosexual marriage is a union of manipulators and victims;

- only elderly spinsters can wield moral authority;

- little children are the main point of existence.

Yes, the Night of the Hunter was his only complete directorial project, but he
left some pretty impressive fragments of the aborted I, Claudius.

>I recall him in Mutiny on the Bounty and the Private Life of Henry VIII.

Billy Wilder's "Witness for the Prosecution" has him at his best. I hear The
Barrets of Wimpole Street is also pretty sharp. Certainly one of the great
character actors of the 20th Century.

Neil