Cape Fear

 

           On the quest of finding the best cinema I haven't touched or never got around to watching. I finally decided to watch a movie that was the original predecessor to Martin Scorsese's Cape Fear. Now I've not seen Scorsese's Cape Fear, but after watching this original version to Cape Fear, I suddenly feel hesitant in wanting to watch Scorsese's version, for a gillion reasons I can honestly tell that De Niro is literally chewing the scenery throughout the entire movie despite not seeing it. But for great reasons, Robert Mitchum's Cady has nothing compared to De Niro's Cady just not even close. The 1962 version of Cape Fear I will most certainly say to everyone who has Amazon Prime, I would highly recommend watching the 62 version to Cape Fear.

           After eight-year prison sentence for rape, Max Cady (Robert Mitchum) targets Sam Bowden (Gregory Peck), one of the lawyers who sent him away. When Max finds Sam and his family, he begins a terrifying stalking spree, intending to ruin Sam's life. Desperate to protect his wife and daughter, Sam tries to send Max back to jail. But when his attempts fail, Sam realizes that he must take matters into his own hands if he wants to get rid of his life of Max for good. 

           Night of the Hunter for sure readied me for Robert Mitchum being a villain, but again this movie shows that I'm glad he's passed because I would be terrified of him once I bump into him and then I make a break for it and run for my life shouting "No Robert don't touch my Pee Pee", I mean sure when it comes to any time of horror film or film noir yeah, you have to play that cold hearted character, but something about Robert Mitchum's performance that gives chills down your spine moreover he was way ahead of any of these actors that played infamous movies villains like Anthony Perkins, Robert Englund and even some of these other iconic movie antagonists that you see in other horror movies. Though what makes Mitchum great to watch on screen is that he's normally scary in the sense that he doesn't really need any props or anything to be scary, it's his presence on screen is what makes him so terrifying on screen. In fact, Gregory Peck and director J. Lee Thompson wanted Mitchum to play the role of Cady, but Mitchum refused at first until he relented after Thompson and Peck delivered him flowers and bourbon furthermore reply's "Okay, I've drunk your bourbon. I'm drunk. I'll do it", for which really that's a one good lesson I'm going to use when I want an actor in my movie, I'm going to deliver them flowers and some good whiskey, and if it's Jessica Chastain or Charlize Theron I'm going to give them flowers and maybe tequila depends on what they're choice of booze would be mainly because I want them to chew the scenery and I figured tequila would be the best choice maybe. J. Lee Thompson gets a lot of credit for making Cape Fear one of the most scary and terrifying movies I've seen since Promising Young Woman. Thompson in fact claimed to be a fan of Alfred Hitchcock, and he envisioned the movie black and white, for good reasons he wanted to have every Hitchcockian element into the movie such as unusual lighting angles, eerie musical score, closeups, and subtitle hints to violence rather than graphic depictions of violence, Mitchum's character has in mind for the family. And it works perfectly especially in scenes where Cady is hooking up with this woman and she starts to get terrified of him and then we have these hints of violence that even I was taken back, especially the way it was shot and you don't see anything and as dark as this may sound I loved the way it turned out. The fact that this movie didn't do so well in the box office and later destroyed Gregory Peck's studio company is just insane in terms of people going to the movies it's almost reminiscing to people now than people in the sixties it’s just way to crazy for people to watch all of Hitchcock's films but a movie inspired by Hitchcock nobody goes to see this is just crazy maybe because of the dark elements but come on, that's what Gregory Peck is there for. Hands down this is defiantly in my top list of greatest horror movies as well as list of greatest movies ever made, I mean Robert Mitchum playing a perfect bad guy, you just can't get any better than this but more importantly you have the best of both actors in Gregory Peck and Robert Mitchum facing off with one another you can't get a better use of great actors since Heat. So, if you have an Amazon Prime account furthermore, hopefully is still there I would highly recommend to stop what you’re doing and sit down and watch this great movie hell even have the kids watch the movie so they can get a clear idea about being terrified of stalkers, hell if kids can get into Sabrina Carpenter moreover be like her, then watching Cape Fear with the kids is a great lesson to learn in life.