Novelist and short-story writer Davis Grubb was a descendant of one of
the oldest, most prominent families in the Moundsville, West Virginia,
area. He mined the area's history for some of his works, including his
award-winning first novel "The Night of the Hunter", based on a thief
who romanced, then killed, two widows he met through "lonely-hearts"
ads, and also slaughtered three children. Grubb was offered the
opportunity to write the ground-breaking 1955 film's screenplay;
instead, he drew elaborate sketches of the characters for director
Charles Laughton and star
Robert Mitchum, who were delighted with
them. Grubb studied painting, but when his vision deteriorated he was
forced to turn to writing for radio.
The actual "lonely-hearts killer" was hanged in Moundsville's
Gothic-style West Virginia Penitentiary, which Grubb employed in "Night
of the Hunter" and his other novel, "Fool's Parade", also made into a
fine movie, starring
James Stewart,
Kurt Russell and
George Kennedy. The penitentiary
was closed in 1995 because its small 5x7 cells didn't meet current
requirements for space allotted a prisoner; the so-called "haunted
prison" has been the site for at least three national TV series
involving ghosts.
Grubb's displaying his home area's warts (including corruption, racism
and violent suppression of unions) made him a pariah to some in
Moundsville. Wes Craven's short-lived TV
series CSL - Crime Scene Lake Glory (2001) portrays
a similar situation about a best-selling novelist returning from the
Northeast to his rural birthplace. The series featured
'Poppy
Montgomery',
Theresa Russell and
Frances Fisher. "Glory" was a
name Grubb used in his writing for a fictionalized Moundsville.
The macabre events, vivid characters and evocative descriptions in
Grubb's short stories also made them perfect subjects for the TV
series'
Alfred Hitchcock zeigt (1962)
and Wo alle Wege enden (1969).
