“Would you like me to tell you the story of right hand, left hand? The story of good and evil?” asks Robert Mitchum’s false prophet, Reverend Charles Harry Powell. Powell’s lust for gold leads him to little Pearl Harper (Sally Jane Bruce) and her older brother John (Billy Chapin), who are guardians of their jailed dad’s stolen loot. Shot by legendary Orson Welles collaborator Stanley Cortez, Charles Laughton’s only film as a director is the most haunted and dreamlike of all American films, a gothic backwoods fairytale with the Devil at its heels.

Free. This film is not rated.