Review: Cape Fear (1962)

Released from an eight year stretch in the slammer (for sexual battery), ex-con Max Cady (Robert Mitchum) aims to make life a living hell for the lawyer (Gregory Peck) whose testimony saw him incarcerated. He sets about planting the seeds in Peck’s mind that his wife (Polly Bergen) and teenage daughter (Lori Martin) are the prey to Cady’s predator...but without actually doing anything wrong. He just...hangs around. Everywhere Peck turns, Cady is there, looking all insinuating and menacing, but he doesn’t commit any crimes. And then the family dog gets poisoned, and Peck has had enough. Peck uses his friendship with police chief Martin Balsam to get Cady thrown out of town (on mere vagrancy charges), but that only has Cady turn to his slick lawyer (Jack Kruschen) to accuse the police and Peck of harassment. You see, Cady’s no dummy, he read a lot of law books whilst in prison, and he’s using all that knowledge to push things as far as he can, to ruin Peck’s life like he perceives his own life was ruined, but with Peck unable to do a damn thing about it. Or can he? Barrie Chase plays a woman of easy virtue whom the bullying Cady has his way with, whilst a youngish Telly Savalas plays a detective who tries to help Peck out.

Forget the overblown Scorsese remake, this intense 1962 J. Lee Thompson (“The Guns of Navarone”, “10 to Midnight”, “Battle for the Planet of the Apes”) thriller is the original and best. No unnecessary marital troubles, and far more clean-cut (but still interesting) main characters, mostly expertly played by a top-drawer cast. Peck is perfect as the upstanding, stalwart family man who has to get his hands a little grubby in order to protect his family. Because it’s Atticus Finch in the role, we’re totally on his side, no matter how far he goes in keeping Cady away from his family. Some might suggest that by making Peck morally upstanding and a more clear-cut good guy that it’s harder to see him going to the lengths he does to protect his family. However, I find it much harder to be interested in an already flawed human being (like the one Nick Nolte played in the remake) going to extreme lengths. For Peck, a morally upright, decent man who just wants him and his family to be left alone, to go to slightly dubious lengths to achieve this peace, to me that’s far more compelling, plausible or not. Mitchum is in his sleazy, intimidating element as the brutish, uber-masculine, threatening Cady. He’s no cartoon sleaze with over-the-top tattoos (De Niro was enjoyably sleazy in his own way, but as written it was an overblown part, especially towards the end), he’s just a big bad bully with a malevolent glint in his eye. He’s believably frightening without even having to do a whole helluva lot to convince us. Along with his villainous ‘preacher’ in “Night of the Hunter”, this might be his most memorable role (a role first offered to Ernest Borgnine, who might’ve been quite effective in the role, too). As always, Balsam is also top-notch in support, as is Kruschen in an especially sleazy role, and Chase as the poor, frightened victim of Cady’s animal brutality. Bergen is too much to bear, and quite irritating, the only drawback in the film. The woman is so over-the-top that I feared her eyes were going to pop right out of her head.

This is a straight-up, rock-solid B-movie with an A-cast, and a sensational music score by Bernard Herrmann (“Psycho”, “Citizen Kane”, “The Day the Earth Stood Still”, “The Trouble With Harry”, “Vertigo”), including that thunderous, chilling main theme. It doesn’t need to be any more than what it is, and Thompson’s tight direction is underrated and thankfully restrained. The film’s still pretty darn adult for its time (few films from this period or earlier would dare put a young girl in such danger), you get plenty of inferences to Cady’s brutality and sleaze without it being shoved in your face. Less is more, most often than not, but it’s entirely obvious what Cady intends to do to Peck’s wife and kid. Scripted by James R. Webb (“The Big Country”, “Pork Chop Hill”), from a novel by John D. MacDonald, this is chilling stuff, but stick with this one, not the overt, overblown remake.

Rating: B+