Cape Fear (1962)

Lists

Ratings & comments

full starfull starfull starfull starempty star

I wish I'd seen this J. Lee Thompson film before the Scorsese remake, because that film is so clearly a response to it. Bowden (Gregory Peck) is essentially innocent -- having only witnessed a crime and testified against Cady (Robert Mitchum) -- and so the moral lines are relatively clear. What is unarguably police corruption therefore feels like a reasonable bending of the rules.

The remake's grimy depths of moral turpitude and sensational, sudden violence turn it into an almost grindhouse take on the same story: not just more frightening, but more believably sleazy.

Mitchum is brilliant and there's nothing quite like a southern noir, crisp shadows in the swamp: it's a great picture, just one that now seems tame by comparison.

- Sam - 2022-04-20 01:11:40