Cape Fear

Year of release : 1962

Run time : 1h45

Genre : Neo Noir / Psychological Thriller / Crime

Cast : Gregory Peck, Robert Mitchum, Telly Savalas

The movie is based on the 1957 novel "The executioners" by John D. MacDonald.

Max Cady is released from prison, after 8 years, for r@ping a 14 year old girl (he put in the hospital for over a month!). He immediately looks for, and finds, Sam Bowden, a lawyer he holds responsible for his imprisonment, for he interrupted the attack, and testified against him.

He takes the keys off the ignition, as Bowden was about to drive off, and tells him he's in town.

He then makes an appearance at the bowling alley, where Bowden is with his family.

Bowden contacts his friend, chief of police Mark Dutton, and sees him that very night, telling him about Cady.

Cady spots a woman at a bar, and ends up dating her. He's hitting on her as the police take him away..really smooth! On a date, she says some really awful things to him, and then he does something to her. We don't know what, as they don't show it (maybe r@pe and b3at her up?) .

Before that, at the police, he tells them he studied law in jail, and knows how it works. They can't charge him for anything, from being drunk to resisting strip search, as he cooperates.

After this, the family dog barks a lot, until it doesn't and they find it almost dead, take it to the vet, and find out it was poisoned.

Cady gets himself the best lawyer,who reveals the police are stalking him, making him change the places he lives in, as the landlords keep on throwing him out.

Dutton tells Bowden to hire a private detective. The detective follows Cady with the date. He then finds out he b3at her up and asks her to sue him, which she refuses. And leaves town.

The private detective tells Bowden to hire a few people to b3at Cady up. After he sees him checking his daughter out, and then coming after her at her school, and then meets with him, and Cady tells him what he did to his own ex wife (who divorced him after he was convicted) and what he wants to do to him and his family (he realizes he's after his daughter), he agrees.

Still, fearing for his family's safety, he takes them on their private boat, while making Cady think he's gone on a business trip. He and other police members hide around the area, trying to catch Cady if he comes around.

I didn't like the movie as much as I liked the remake, in fact, it kinda bored me. The fights looked bad, you can tell they are staged, as it looks fake.

The movie was cut weird, before the scene ended, and sometimes, it looked like it would have been better for the scene to be longer. The scene in which the detective's men b3at Cady up, starts weird. They could have started with them trying to pick a fight with him in a bar, and from there on, to fight, but they just show us the fight, randomly, on the beach!

The women had these ugly short haircuts, which I guess, were in fashion at the time.

I liked the daughter more than in the remake, as she is acting as one should, in the situation. She runs away from Cady, she is terrified of him.

Cady is still vile, he punishes people he thinks wronged him. He never thinks he's in the wrong, everybody else is doing wrong by him, he does right by everyone, by r@ping girls,b3ating up women, impr1soning them and threatening them with more, and k1lling dogs.

I liked the architecture, the interior design and the women's clothes. I liked the Bowden home. The wife and daughter were beautiful.

The acting was so and so, I thought Gregory Peck was stiff (ironically, the critics liked him!), and the women, meaning the wife and the woman Cady picks and b3ats up, act all weird. The best actor to me, was Cady's lawyer.

When it comes to the soundtrack, I liked the eerie theme, which is kept in the remake, but that's pretty much it, as I hated the rest.

The movie received positive reviews, and grossed 1.8 million dollars at the box office.

Robert Mitchum refused to play Cady, but accepted after Gregory Peck and director J. Lee Thompson sent him flowers and a case of bourbon.

Gregory Peck made the movie with his own production company, Melville Productions, and also gave the movie's title, as he didn't like the book's.

In the book, Cady is actually a soldier court-martialed and convicted by lieutenant Bowden's testimony for the r@pe of a 14 year old girl. The censors banned the word r@pe and thought soldiers r@ping girls was putting the military in a bad light.

The movie was influenced by Alfred Hitchcock's movies, and it even has cast and crew members who worked with him prior to this (like the editor, George Tomasini, and the composer Bernard Herrmann ).

Rating : Could have been a contender !