Post by erik on Sept 22, 2012 22:11:32 GMT -5
Quote by Max Cady (Robert Mitchum) over the phone to Sam Bowden (Gregory Peck):
"You just put the law into my hands; and I'm gonna break your heart with it."
Much as was the case with Hitchcock's PSYCHO, there is something extremely unsettling even to this day about the original 1962 thriller CAPE FEAR. Not only is it an amazing combination of film noir, crime, and psychological horror, but it is a very unsettling meditation about how far ordinary citizens can take the law into their own hands to protect their families from criminals who know a little bit about the law themselves.
Based on John D. McDonald's novel The Executioners, CAPE FEAR stars Gregory Peck as an upstanding attorney in Savannah, Georgia who is confronted one day by one Max Cady (Robert Mitchum). Eight years before, Peck had witnessed Mitchum beat the living daylights out of a woman in a Baltimore parking lot; and due to his testimony at trial, Mitchum was sent to prison. Now, Mitchum is out of jail, and aiming to get a demonic revenge against the man who sent him up the river. This involves ogling both his wife (Polly Bergen) and daughter (Lori Martin) in public, then escalates into poisoning the family dog. And while the local police chief and close friend (Martin Balsam) is sympathetic to his plight, the cops can't do anything to arrest Mitchum, short of him committing an overt act. A private detective (Telly Savalas) tries to get the goods after Mitchum beats up on a hooker (Barrie Chase), but Chase refuses to testify. Peck tries to buy Mitchum off, but Mitchum doesn't bite. And then Peck has a couple of toughs beat Mitchum up down at the dock, which lands him in hot legal water as an accesory to a crime.
The only thing he can do now is to try and lure Mitchum to an isolated spot, in this case a houseboat on the Cape Fear River, on the North Carolina/South Carolina border, and find a way to finish him off. But to do this, he must put his own family in mortal danger, which ends up in a terrifying and highly suspenseful climax. And even when Mitchum crosses the line and kills a deputy sheriff guarding Peck's family, Peck doesn't kill the ex-con--preferring instead that Mitchum die a long, slow death in prison.
Well directed by British journeyman J. Lee Thompson (who directed Peck in 1961's THE GUNS OF NAVARONE), CAPE FEAR has lost none of its punch in the last fifty years, even with Scorsese's ultra-violent 1991 remake (with Robert DeNiro in Mitchum's place). A great deal of that is owed to the fact that Peck (playing roughly the same role he'd win an Oscar for in TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD) and Mitchum (every bit the hardened villain he had been in NIGHT OF THE HUNTER), are so incredible as the prime antagonists. Bergen, Martin, Balsam, and Savalas also acquaint themselves well; cinematographer Sam Leavitt provides a great deal of noirish black-and-white photography; and Hitchcock's go-to composer Bernard Herrmann's score underpins a lot of the terror and suspense so implicit in the story.
Though less overtly violent than Scorsese's remake, the original CAPE FEAR is fairly rough as well in its own way, and still extremely scary in all the right places. It is one of those classic suspense films that really shouldn't be seen with the lights off.
"Get the picture, counsellor?"
"You just put the law into my hands; and I'm gonna break your heart with it."
Much as was the case with Hitchcock's PSYCHO, there is something extremely unsettling even to this day about the original 1962 thriller CAPE FEAR. Not only is it an amazing combination of film noir, crime, and psychological horror, but it is a very unsettling meditation about how far ordinary citizens can take the law into their own hands to protect their families from criminals who know a little bit about the law themselves.
Based on John D. McDonald's novel The Executioners, CAPE FEAR stars Gregory Peck as an upstanding attorney in Savannah, Georgia who is confronted one day by one Max Cady (Robert Mitchum). Eight years before, Peck had witnessed Mitchum beat the living daylights out of a woman in a Baltimore parking lot; and due to his testimony at trial, Mitchum was sent to prison. Now, Mitchum is out of jail, and aiming to get a demonic revenge against the man who sent him up the river. This involves ogling both his wife (Polly Bergen) and daughter (Lori Martin) in public, then escalates into poisoning the family dog. And while the local police chief and close friend (Martin Balsam) is sympathetic to his plight, the cops can't do anything to arrest Mitchum, short of him committing an overt act. A private detective (Telly Savalas) tries to get the goods after Mitchum beats up on a hooker (Barrie Chase), but Chase refuses to testify. Peck tries to buy Mitchum off, but Mitchum doesn't bite. And then Peck has a couple of toughs beat Mitchum up down at the dock, which lands him in hot legal water as an accesory to a crime.
The only thing he can do now is to try and lure Mitchum to an isolated spot, in this case a houseboat on the Cape Fear River, on the North Carolina/South Carolina border, and find a way to finish him off. But to do this, he must put his own family in mortal danger, which ends up in a terrifying and highly suspenseful climax. And even when Mitchum crosses the line and kills a deputy sheriff guarding Peck's family, Peck doesn't kill the ex-con--preferring instead that Mitchum die a long, slow death in prison.
Well directed by British journeyman J. Lee Thompson (who directed Peck in 1961's THE GUNS OF NAVARONE), CAPE FEAR has lost none of its punch in the last fifty years, even with Scorsese's ultra-violent 1991 remake (with Robert DeNiro in Mitchum's place). A great deal of that is owed to the fact that Peck (playing roughly the same role he'd win an Oscar for in TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD) and Mitchum (every bit the hardened villain he had been in NIGHT OF THE HUNTER), are so incredible as the prime antagonists. Bergen, Martin, Balsam, and Savalas also acquaint themselves well; cinematographer Sam Leavitt provides a great deal of noirish black-and-white photography; and Hitchcock's go-to composer Bernard Herrmann's score underpins a lot of the terror and suspense so implicit in the story.
Though less overtly violent than Scorsese's remake, the original CAPE FEAR is fairly rough as well in its own way, and still extremely scary in all the right places. It is one of those classic suspense films that really shouldn't be seen with the lights off.
"Get the picture, counsellor?"
