From the 1960s: Cape Fear

1962 Drama
From Universal Studios
Directed by J. Lee Thompson

Starring
Gregory Peck
Robert Mitchum
Polly Bergen
Lori Martin
Martin Balsam
Telly Savalas
Jack Kruschen
Barrie Chase

The movie belongs to Robert Mitchum from start to finish.  He rarely played a villain but when he did, one needed to buckle up and cover your face.  He was not exactly a hero in 1954's Track of the Cat and was a cold, brutish family man in 1960's Home from the Hill.  And of course he was a psychopath to the bone in 1955's The Night of the Hunter.  All are Mitchum performances I loved but for my money, he was never better or more evil than he is in Cape Fear. 

The story is simple enough.  A rapist (Mitchum), after spending eight years, four months and 13 days in prison, returns to a small, southern town to seek revenge against the lawyer (Peck) who put him behind bars.  The film opens with Mitchum walking up courthouse steps when an older woman drops the books she's carrying and he simply passes by.  He then sits in the back of a courtroom and stares with daggers as Peck tries a case.

As Peck gets into his car afterwards, Mitchum appears at the driver's window, reaches across and takes the keys out of the ignition.  The two men exchange unpleasantries and as the barrel-chested rapist with the fat cigar and Panama hat hands back the keys and starts to leave, he offers give my love to the family.  I'll be seein' ya.

After Mitchum stalks the family at a bowling alley, scares Peck's wife (Bergen) over the phone, frightens the young daughter (Martin) at her school to the point that she runs into the street and is knocked down by a car and poisons the family dog, Peck decides to do something about it.  Mitchum is clever enough to not get caught so Peck, the upright, tried and true lawyer, takes matter into his own hands.

He enlists his cop friend (Balsam) to haul Mitchum in on vagrancy charges.  When that doesn't work, Peck threatens him and later offers him a financial bribe.  When that, too, fails, he has some local riffraff beat him up.  All it does is make Mitchum mad as hell.

Finally Peck hires a private detective (Savalas) and they try all sorts of things that don't produce any good results.  Finally they cook up a scheme to lure Mitchum to two houseboats the family will be occupying on North Carolina's Cape Fear River where Peck plans to kill Mitchum in self-defense.

The climax, to say the least, is frightening but exciting.  Peck and a friend are stationed offshore watching the houseboats awaiting Mitchum's arrival.  After Peck discovers that Mitchum has drowned his friend, Peck's hurries to the houseboats.  The camera switches to a petrified Bergen as Mitchum enters.  (More on this before we conclude.)  Peck's sudden arrival prevents the rape but Peck finds that Mitchum has escaped through an opening in the roof.  It's Nancy (the daughter) he's after, Bergen screams, it's Nancy.

Cameras catch Nancy bouncing a pink pong ball on the table as Mitchum breaks through the door.  She is gripped with terror and as she is taken into the woods, Peck catches up and the two men have a doozy of a fight in the water.  Of course we expect Mitchum to die when Peck shoots him, but the lawyer decides a lifetime prison stretch is better.

Peck had read John D. MacDonald's novel, The Executioners, when he was making The Guns of Navarone with director Thompson in Greece the previous year.  The actor thought it would make a great thriller for his production company.  He asked the Brit Thompson to read the novel and if he liked it, would he direct, making it his first American film?

Both agreed that Peck would not play the bad guy but with that decision came the fact that the choicest role would go to another actor.  Peck mulled over some choices (resisting Rod Steiger's many plea-filled phone calls) and came up with Mitchum.  He came up with some suggestions for the story that Peck and Thompson liked but then said he didn't want to do it.  He'd been working too much and wanted to plop down on his Maryland farm.  Luckily the producer/star and director changed his mind.

They hadn't completely decided on where they were going to film when Mitchum signed on the dotted line.  When he heard most of the location work would be in Savannah, GA he wanted to back out.  He had done some jail time back in his foolish youthful days when he hopped trains and he always had a grudge against the city.  As a result he arrived in Savannah with a surly attitude.  Gee, it would make inhabiting the character of the bad guy a little easier.

Peck didn't like the title of the book but had yet to come up with one.  He said he liked names of real places as titles and when he was looking at a map, he spotted Cape Fear and knew instantly there was no point in looking further.  What could be more perfect for this story?  Have a chuckle when we mention no filming was done at Cape Fear.  The famous houseboat scene was done on the Universal backlot and at a watery spot near Ventura, CA on the last day of shooting.

Filming apparently went smoothly until it got to the big scene with Bergen on the houseboat and then some general nervousness was palpable.  Mitchum admitted that he worked himself up for violent scenes.  He pranced around the set in a bare-chested sweat and when it was time, without rehearsal, he burst into the scene with an electric explosion of sadistic fury.  He is so strong and burly and his eyes... oh those eyes are terrifying.  If Bergen looks terrified, she said she truly was.

As she's pleading with him to stop and while he's rubbing up against her, he breaks an egg over her chest and then rubs in it and over her sundress.  Yep, terrifying is for sure the word.  Then as he is dragging her into the bedroom, he accidentally hit his arm on a cabinet causing a gushing of blood which got all over both actors but they kept filming.  Then he is to push her back into the bedroom door which was supposed to easily fall off but as it turns out, the door was locked so Bergen absorbed the total collision.  Creepy as it is, much more ended up on the cutting room floor because the censors would never have approved.  

I suspect Cape Fear was not the big box office that might have been hoped for but it was certainly popular for that part of the public (moi) that likes to be scared.  Some naysayers would call it repellent, too sadistic and just a few too many scenes that seem too pat and implausible.  How is it he shows up at every place this family goes?  

I say on that last sentence... oh get over it.  What's the point of seeing a flick and just picking it apart?  This one is a great, could-really-happen thriller which also is an extremely entertaining ride.  And for me, at least, two of my (four) favorite actors of all time... in the same film!!!  

Kudos to all the actors... they all took it very seriously and it shows.  I cannot imagine a super Mitchum fan not having seen this movie, but if you're out there, see this at once.  As an antidote, maybe The Sound of Music afterwards.  When one considers this brawny actor was a boozer and occasional brawler in real life, it gives his scenes some added verisimilitude. 

Peck certainly did give the best role away but his strength and bearing comes through loud and clear as the emotionally-frazzled lawyer.  That the character would ultimately go against his principles and the law to finally get the drop on Mitchum makes me wonder how the proud and extremely principled Peck felt about that.  The year was a good one for him.  After Cape Fear he would become a part of the large, glittering cast in How the West Was Won.  Then he did To Kill a Mockingbird.  We know how that worked out.

As the film was in wide release and Mitchum was beating the drums ballyhooing it, he was quoted a couple of times as saying he had wiped Peck off the screen in the acting department.  There is no question that it was the showier role and I feel his best, but c'mon now, no one acts Peck off a movie screen.  I didn't think highly of him for that, Peck said.  Nonetheless, Peck, the gentleman that he was, put it aside and remained friendly with Mitchum.

Bergen's poise and elegance made the character's fright and hysteria all the more compelling.  Once in a while she overacted a bit in her work but she was an effective choice for the role, a perfect complement to Peck.  She had not made a movie in nine years and she came back in the first half of the sixties to do four films.  This was the first and the best.  You may recall that in the 80s Bergen and Mitchum would be reunited, this time as husband and wife, in two popular miniseries, The Winds of War and and its sequel, War and Remembrance.

A special shout-out must go to Bernard Herrmann's heart-thumping, Hitchcockian score.  It was sheer perfection, so much so that when Cape Fear was remade in 1991 they used the same score.  And by the way, Mitchum and Peck had small roles in the remake.

Today we would call this stalking.  How frightening it would be.  Here's a peek... if you're so inclined.

Next posting:
She played aristocrats...
she couldn't help it.