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# John Harper: A child shall lead them
- URL: https://www.boscutti.com/john-harper-a-child-shall-lead-them/
- Published: 2012-06-16T14:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2023-07-01T22:25:52.000Z
- Author: Stefano Boscutti
- Tags: Journal

Billy Chapin was not your typical child actor playing cutesy.

He had started acting professionally in 1951 in the Broadway stage musical “Three Wishes for Jamie.” After a year of touring, the play became a considerable success and earned him the New York Drama Critics Award as the most promising young actor of the year.

Charles Laughton personally cast the eight-year-old for the role of young John Harper in his 1955 film classic “The Night of the Hunter.” Chapin plays the dirt poor Depression-era son who must protect his younger sister and keep his dead father’s secret from the ravages of a psychotic preacher.

Chapin holds his own against an increasingly erratic Shelley Winters and looming, dangerous Robert Mitchum. He holds a certain dignity.

No small task for a small child.