Just by way of contrast, the very first time I ever heard Leaning on the Everlasting Arms was in a movie, Night of the Hunter, sung by Robert Mitchum and Lillian Gish. Mitchum plays a fake preacher who kills people; Gish protects orphaned children from him. It’s the only movie ever directed by Charles Laughton.
I can’t explain what the hymn is doing in the movie, but it feels right. Something must have made it right to be there, or I wouldn’t have remembered it for so many years.
Night of the Hunter was a unique, amazing film. The “preacher” (Mitchum ~ a FABULOUS performance) was a psychopath who actually believed he was acting according to the will of God. The woman (Gish) rescued children during the Great Depression when the innocent and helpless were often abandoned the way people abandon pets today. We do not know our history or we would know how terrible those times were.
Yes, a classic movie, one of the great films… And did we ever hear it from my mother about the Great Depression!
I didn’t like the owl attacking the cute rabbit 🙂