Having already written extensively about the movie in my review of Kathy Hepinstall's Absence of Nectar, I'll only add a few more comments here.  The inspiration for this book, and for the character of Harry Powell, was Harry Powers, known as the Bluebeard of Quiet Dell, who was hanged on March 18, 1932, at the West Virginia Penitentiary in Moundsville.  Powers was convicted of killing Asta B. Eicher. a widow, along with her three children, and another widow, Dorothy Lemke.  He may also have killed a traveling salesman.  The story would have been sensational at any time, but to a nation deep in the Depression, it offered welcome diversion.  Grubb, like Powers, was a resident of Clarksburg, and it's easy to imagine the grip the story must have exerted on the mind of a teen boy.

At any rate, the novel he wrote has surely captivated the rest of us. Charles Laughton used it as the source for the only movie he ever directed, the failure of which was apparently a devastating personal blow to him.  It can be difficult to find the book these days, but it's well worth the effort.  And the film is now acknowledged as a true cinema classic.

(Reviewed:17-Aug-01)

Grade: (A) Orrin C. Judd

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