Charles Laughton’s only film as a director, from 1955, is the dark tale of a criminal (Robert Mitchum) pretending to be a preacher, who marries an unsuspecting woman (Shelley Winters) in order to find money that her deceased husband had hidden, and in the process terrorizes her and her two children. Charles Laughton was a renowned British actor who made it big in Hollywood, but someday wanted to direct a movie. In 1953, Paul Gregory, a producer and long-time friend, sent him a book by a new writer, Davis Grubb, called “The Night of the Hunter.” Laughton was captivated, and…