PicoBlog

(Amblin Entertainment / Universal Pictures)

Everyone who has a list of favorite film directors, probably has a least favorite film of said directors. For most Tim Burton fans, it’s usually his remake of Planet of the Apes (2001). A lot of Quentin Tarantino fans don’t seem to care for his segment of Grindhouse (2007), ‘Death Proof.’ As a longtime Martin Scorsese fan, for me, it’s his 1991 version of Cape Fear. Although, much to my chagrin, the movie’s managed to maintain semi-popularity since its initial release. Based on John D. MacDonald’s 1957 novel The Executioners, English director J. Lee Thompson was the first to adapt the story in 1962. Supposedly it was lead actor Gregory Peck’s idea to change the title to Cape Fear, thinking the original sounded too technical. I often wonder how different my viewing of Scorsese’s feature would have been if I wasn’t already familiar with Thompson’s effort beforehand.

When Thompson signed on to the classic thriller, he intentionally used Alfred Hitchcock’s style and technique as an influence for his own project. This is most obvious with Hitchcock’s favorite composer, Bernard Herrmann, and Psycho (1960) co-star Martin Balsam recruited for Thompson’s film. Surprisingly, the legendary villain role of Max Cady was originally offered to Peck before Robert Mitchum made the character iconic. Peck chose to stand aside for the more conventional Sam Bowden protagonist, with Polly Bergen and Lori Martin playing his wife and daughter. Twenty-nine years later, Scorsese delivered his own attempt by swapping Bob Mitchum for Bob De Niro and casting Nick Nolte, Jessica Lange and Juliette Lewis as the Bowden family. The updated film also features Herrmann’s previous score and cameo appearances from Peck, Mitchum and Balsam.

(Universal Pictures)

To me, the 1962 Cape Fear is a good example of ‘less is more.’ Of course, Thompson and co. had to work around tighter censorship at the time. But the tale of a recently released criminal from prison seeking revenge on the lawyer who put him there works better with some subtlety in my eyes. Anyone who knows my taste in movies can tell you I don’t mind violence on screen—when it’s appropriate. As a Scorsese fan, Taxi Driver (1976) and GoodFellas (1990) are up there as favorites, and I’ve grown to appreciate Casino (1995) and Gangs of New York (2002) over the years. But on first viewing, it was clear to me the filmmaker’s main motivation for Cape Fear ‘91 was phoning in a genre picture so his period piece The Age of Innocence (1993) could be greenlit. De Niro’s portrayal of Cady is greasier, campier and over the top [albeit intentionally], in contrast to Mitchum’s more sinister, sleazy and stoic performance. And because the man in the directing chair helped break the barrier on movie violence, the character is ten times more brutal in 1991 too. Most prominent to me is the scene where Cady goes on a date with a pretty girl [Barrie Chase in 1962 and Illeana Douglas in 1991] only to assault her when they go back to her place.

In Thompson’s picture, there’s not a lot of dialogue and most of the tension [sexual and frightening] is through Mitchum’s and Chase’s facial expressions. At the end of the sequence all we see is Chase’s Diane Taylor rush to her bedroom door when it becomes apparent the night is going to end badly, only for Cady to roughly grab her arm, which causes the door to shut. That’s really all I need to see. I don’t think there was any necessity in seeing poor Illeana Douglas’ Lori Davis’ cheek bitten off by De Niro in the second adaptation. There’s also the unique, wicked sexuality of Mitchum which makes his Cady even more uncomfortably terrible. [This was only two years after Anthony Perkins’ helped coin the ‘handsome villain’ element in Psycho.] Whereas De Niro’s Cady is more traditionally ‘gross’ and unpleasant to look at, making it easy for the audience to dislike him.

The one thing in Scorsese’s Cape Fear I did prefer was the casting of Juliette Lewis as the Bowdens’ teenage daughter. Not to knock on Lori Martin’s performance, who did decently, but the role was fairly basic in 1962. [Thompson himself was always publicly disappointed he couldn’t hire Hayley Mills for the part because of her studio contract with Walt Disney.] With Lewis, we can see how confused, anxious, and angst-ridden she is over her parents’ unhappy marriage and this psychopath stalking her. The young actress deservingly received a Best Supporting Actress nomination at the Oscars that season. It’s particularly fitting the big scene between Cady and Danielle is changed from a typical chase sequence to an awkward seduction where the high-schooler sucks the criminal’s thumb.

So while not on the same level of awful dullness as Gus van Sant’s 1998 Psycho remake; if you were to view Cape Fear for the first time this year, I would go with the original 1962 film.

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