Move over, Anton Chigurh. Sit back down, Hannibal Lector. Step aside, Harry Powell. Max Cady has come to town, and he thinks you're all a bunch of pansies.

It's one thing to put on a performance that overshadows all other aspects of an otherwise good film. It's another to put on one that pulls the rest of a good film into greatness. Robert Mitchum, whom I have ashamedly not experienced much of, gives such a show here in Cape Fear. Yes, the score by Bernard Herrmann, ominous and accentuating rather than intrusive, didn't need much help. And yes, Gregory Peck et. al. do just fine on their own (especially so for Polly Bergen as his wife and Barrie Chase as…

I got somethin' planned for your wife and kid that they ain't nevah gonna forget. They ain't nevah gonna forget it... and neither will you, Counselor! Nevah!
-Max Cady

Martin Scorsese is my favorite director without question. Has been for years. I'm one of those people that when the trailer for Hugo came out, I would look at anyone that said it didn't look good as if they were an idiot and say "Of course it's going to be good, it's Scorsese for Christ's sake!". So it'll come as no surprise that I've seen his remake of Cape Fear too many times to count and think that Robert De Niro's portrayal of Max Cady is one of his all time…

Diane Taylor: «You're just an animal: coarse, lustful, barbaric.»
Max Cady: «Keep right on talkin', honey. I like it when you run me down like that.»

I often wonder what filmmakers really attempt to achieve when they're remaking unique classics. What drives them? Sometimes, I reckon, it's money. In those cases when the studio initiates a remake that's often the case. They can then put a somewhat unexperienced director at the helm and get it done. But no studio no longer tells people like Martin Scorsese what to do, do they? So in this case it must be something different. Perhaps it was relaxing to do a couple of remakes after the creatively challenging 80's decade. Certainly it couldn't be…

'Cape Fear' aparece citada muy pocas veces en los tratados de referencia sobre el thriller o el film noir clásico, probablemente porque no se ajusta al mainstream del género. No va de conflictos anclados en la realidad social, ni se presta al psicoanálisis, ni es obviamente expresionista, ni apela al hard boiled literario. Es, simplemente un relato sobre una fuerza del mal desatada que ataca al corazón del hogar americano, llevando un paso más allá el modelo radicalmente moderno que propuso unos años antes William Wyler en 'Horas desesperadas'. Por suerte, después del remake de 1992, en el que Scorsese enrevesó el sencillo y directo argumento original añadiendo un montón de chifladura, se hizo justicia y el original de J.…

Watching the original 1960's version of Cape Fear immediately following a rewatch of Martin Scorcese's 1991 remake was a fascinating experience. The 60's version is an excellent, super-suspenseful thriller that manages to keep the viewer on the edge of their seat despite not going to the extremes that Scorcese went to in his version. In that regard, I'm tempted to say that the original is a bit more impressive than the remake. In the original, a girl is attacked by Max Cady (the Robert Mitchum/Robert DeNiro character) and ends up with a small bruise on her face. In the remake, we watch Cady take a bloody bite out of the girl's face and she ends up in the hospital looking…

Taken from a piece on my favourite films from 1962 for Failed Critics: failedcritics.com/2013/04/11/a-decade-in-film-the-sixties-1962/

“I got somethin’ planned for your wife and kid that they ain’t nevah gonna forget. They ain’t nevah gonna forget it… and neither will you, Counselor! Nevah!”

In what may be a surprise for some, I have placed a different film featuring Gregory Peck as a persecuted lawyer in the number one slot for this year. While To Kill a Mockingbird is a brilliant film with a lot to say, Cape Fear is simply one of the most frightening films I have seen. Not frightening in a jumpy horror way, rather in that the violence inferred in this film is terrifyingly real, and seemingly inevitable.

Peck…

Move over, Anton Chigurh. Sit back down, Hannibal Lector. Step aside, Harry Powell. Max Cady has come to town, and he thinks you're all a bunch of pansies.

It's one thing to put on a performance that overshadows all other aspects of an otherwise good film. It's another to put on one that pulls the rest of a good film into greatness. Robert Mitchum, whom I have ashamedly not experienced much of, gives such a show here in Cape Fear. Yes, the score by Bernard Herrmann, ominous and accentuating rather than intrusive, didn't need much help. And yes, Gregory Peck et. al. do just fine on their own (especially so for Polly Bergen as his wife and Barrie Chase as…

I got somethin' planned for your wife and kid that they ain't nevah gonna forget. They ain't nevah gonna forget it... and neither will you, Counselor! Nevah!
-Max Cady

Martin Scorsese is my favorite director without question. Has been for years. I'm one of those people that when the trailer for Hugo came out, I would look at anyone that said it didn't look good as if they were an idiot and say "Of course it's going to be good, it's Scorsese for Christ's sake!". So it'll come as no surprise that I've seen his remake of Cape Fear too many times to count and think that Robert De Niro's portrayal of Max Cady is one of his all time…

'Cape Fear' aparece citada muy pocas veces en los tratados de referencia sobre el thriller o el film noir clásico, probablemente porque no se ajusta al mainstream del género. No va de conflictos anclados en la realidad social, ni se presta al psicoanálisis, ni es obviamente expresionista, ni apela al hard boiled literario. Es, simplemente un relato sobre una fuerza del mal desatada que ataca al corazón del hogar americano, llevando un paso más allá el modelo radicalmente moderno que propuso unos años antes William Wyler en 'Horas desesperadas'. Por suerte, después del remake de 1992, en el que Scorsese enrevesó el sencillo y directo argumento original añadiendo un montón de chifladura, se hizo justicia y el original de J.…