Cape Fear is a 1962 film about an attorney whose family is stalked by a criminal whom he helped to send to jail. It stars Gregory Peck, Robert Mitchum as Max Cady, Polly Bergen, Lori Martin, Martin Balsam, Jack Kruschen, Telly Savalas, Paul Comi and Barrie Chase. It was adapted by James R. Webb from the novel The Executioners by John D. MacDonald. It was directed by J. Lee Thompson, and released on April 12, 1962.
Cape Fear was remade in 1991. Peck, Mitchum and Balsam all appeared in the remake.
Plot
After spending eight years in prison for assault, Max Cady (Robert Mitchum) is released. He promptly tracks down Sam Bowden (Gregory Peck), a North Carolina lawyer and a man he holds personally responsible for his conviction.
Cady begins to stalk and subtly threaten Bowden's family. A friend of Bowden's, police chief Mark Dutton (Martin Balsam), attempts to intervene on his behalf, but he cannot prove Cady guilty of any actual new crime, even a minor one like vagrancy.
Bowden hires Charlie Sievers (Telly Savalas), a private detective. Cady seduces and then brutally attacks a young woman named Diane Taylor (Barrie Chase), but neither the private eye nor Bowden can persuade her to testify. Bowden hires three thugs to beat up Cady and persuade him to leave town, but the plan backfires when Cady gets the better of all three. Cady's lawyer vows to have Bowden disbarred.
Afraid for his wife Peggy (Polly Bergen) and 14-year-old daughter (Lori Martin), Bowden takes them to their houseboat in Cape Fear. He fully expects Cady to follow them and has Sievers and a deputy nearby, but Cady eludes them and then terrorizes the Bowdens on their boat. It leads to a final violent fight on the riverbank between the two men.
Production
Casting
Peck acquired the rights to Cape Fear, originally attached to the project as a producer, not an actor. However, he was sought for the role of antagonist Max Cady by the studios. Peck was so against playing a villain at the time that he steadfastly refused the part. He felt audiences would not accept him playing a ruthless character so he instead sought the role of the hero.[citation needed]
When approached to play the villain, Mitchum also turned down the role. But convinced that Mitchum would make the perfect Cady, director Thompson and producer Peck sent him a bottle of bourbon. According to a Mitchum biography authored by Lee Server, a couple of days later, Mitchum sent a telegraph to Thompson, which read: "I've had your bourbon. I'm drunk. I'll do it."[citation needed]
At 6'3, Peck stood taller than the 6-1 Mitchum, although he played the less aggressive of the two characters. Mitchum later stated that in the final fight scene, Peck once accidentally punched him for real. Mitchum said he felt the impact of the punch for days afterwards.[citation needed]
Hayley Mills was originally considered to play the daughter, but she was on a contract with Disney and was unable to do so. Barrie Chase, who plays a drifter picked up by Cady, was a popular dancer and TV personality of the 1950s, as well as a companion of Fred Astaire. Lori Martin, who plays Bowden's daughter, reported having nightmares for weeks after filming the scenes where she is menaced by Cady at school and when he confronts her in a cabin.[citation needed]
Filming
Robert Mitchum in
Cape Fear
Thompson had always envisioned the film in black and white prior to production. Being an Alfred Hitchcock fan, he wanted to have Hitchcockian elements in the film, such as unusual lighting angles, an eerie musical score, closeups and subtle hints rather than graphic depictions of the violence that Cady has in mind for the family.
The outdoor scenes were filmed first on location in Savannah, Georgia. The indoor scenes and the Cape Fear, North Carolina, scenes were done at Universal studios. Mitchum had a real-life aversion to Savannah, where, as a teenager, he had been charged with vagrancy and put on a chain-gang.
The scene where Mitchum attacks Polly Bergen's character on the houseboat was almost completely improvised. Before the scene was filmed, the director suddenly told a crew member: "Bring me a dish of eggs!" Mitchum rubbing the eggs on Bergen was not scripted and Bergen's reactions were real. She also suffered back injuries from being knocked around so much. She felt the impact of the "attack" for days.
Release and legacy
Although the word "rape" was entirely removed from the script before shooting, the film still enraged the censors, who were worried that "there was a continuous threat of sexual assault on a child". In order to be accepted, British censors required extensive editing and deleting of specific scenes. After making 161 cuts, it still nearly garnered an X rating.
In April 2007, Newsweek selected Robert Mitchum's character as one of the ten best villains in cinema history. Cape Fear was also #36 on Bravo's 100 Scariest Movie Moments for its famous scene where Max Cady attacks Sam's family.
The Internet Movie Database rates it number 47 of 807 trial movies, although there is no courtroom trial in the film.[1]
Notes
Further reading
- Bergman, Paul; Asimow, Michael. (2006) Reel justice: the courtroom goes to the movies (Kansas City : Andrews and McMeel). ISBN 0740754602; ISBN 978-0740754609; ISBN 0836210352; ISBN 978-0836210354.
- Machura, Stefan and Robson, Peter, eds. Law and Film: Representing Law in Movies (Cambridge: Blackwell Publishing, 2001). ISBN 0631228160, ISBN 9780631228165 176 pages.
- Thain, Gerald J., "Cape Fear, Two Versions and Two Visions Separated by Thirty Years." ISBN 0631228160, ISBN 9780631228165 176 pages.
See also
External links
