The following three films share these elements: A murdered woman, the murderer with a disturbingly slippery conscience, and a large, slow-flowing river. In each movie, the river behaves as both silent observer and participant. The icy current suggests, or openly provides, a means of escape for certain characters. But it's never that simple.
HOUSE BY THE RIVER
Dir. Fritz Lang
(Republic; 1950)
Lang lets the moonlit water and marsh of his unnamed river exude an eerie, judgmental stillness. Though the waters running through the film's Victorian-era American village linger in nearly every scene of the first two acts, the final act is confined almost entirely to the wonderfully dark interiors of the killer's gas-lit mansion.
However, the river asserts its power in the third act by depositing the corpse of a murdered maid onto the shore. No matter how hard the rich, sex-crazed husband works to pin a murder he committed on his stoic brother -- while keeping his increasingly suspicious wife in the dark -- the river brings biblical justice.The story unfolds carefully, Lang's use of shadow and light enhances the mood, and the acting is solid all around. What could have been a melodramatic morality tale is instead a morally squishy psychological thriller.
THE NIGHT OF THE HUNTER
Dir. Charles Laughton
(United Artists; 1955)
A false preacher, a stash of pilfered cash, an hysterical widow, two children left to fend for themselves, and a scripture-quoting old woman who runs an ad-hoc orphanage during the worst of the Great Depression -- what else does anyone need to know about this film that hasn't been said better elsewhere?
Robert Mitchum is terrifying, the photography and permanent-twilight lighting is a visual feast, and the kids (Billy Chapin and Sally Jane Bruce) give a master class in child acting.
Here, the river is a shaky ally for the children as they escape Mitchum's evil preacher by letting the current pull their raft away from him, but never fast enough. Until Lillian Gish offers the kids true safety, the river proves only marginally more reliable than all the adults in their lives.
RIVER'S EDGE
Dir. Tim Hunter
(Hemdale 1986)
The river in this film remains silent throughout, never really a part of the story so much as a pastoral setting for a series of tragic and horrifying events.
A group of small-town teens from families with little money and fewer prospects have all gone to the bank of the river to see the body of their dead friend. She was murdered by her ox of a boyfriend and left there in the tall grass. Worse, none of the kids seems too eager to report the crime. After establishing that set-up the remainder of the film is a tense waiting game to see who will crack first.
Young Keanu Reeves plays the nervous moral compass, but he's overshadowed by Crispin Glover's speed-addled metal head and Dennis Hopper's paranoid dealer. Unlike the previous two films mentioned, the body of water in this film has no capacity for symbolic morality, nor does it offer a hint of safe passage.
