Cape Fear

Tuesday, April 22, 2008

Hello ladies and gentlemen and welcome to my first ever Robert Mitchum Sorta Kinda Convoluted Remake Double Feature. (It's not likely to be a repeat event... a little too specialized). It starts with Cape Fear, an early 60's horror/thriller movie in which Mitchum co-stars as the villain, which was later remade by Martin Scorsese starring Robert DeNiro in the Mitchum role. Next up is Against All Odds, a mid-80's remake of the classic Mitchum-starred film noir Out of the Past, with Jeff Bridges stepping into Mitchum's shoes.

So, you know, there's some sort of tangential, spritual connection going on between these films. Kinda. One's a Robert Mitchum movie that was later remade, and the other is a remake of a Robert Mitchum movie. So maybe they are like evil twins. Or one is the Bizarro version of the other, I don't know. The theme still works a little, I don't think it's too tenuous.

Let me start by noting that Cape Fear was directed by J. Lee Thompson, who 20 years later would make Happy Birthday to Me, a sometimes well made, near-miss slasher movie with a batshit crazy ending. (You can read my post about it here. When I saw it, I was all fucked up on cold medicine and the movie felt like some weird, 5 hour long dream about a slasher movie.) How Thompson went from directing a classic thriller with respectable cast members like Mitchum and Gregory Peck, to making a weirdo slasher picture where the killer impersonates the heroine by wearing some sort of futuristic, perfectly lifelike mask of her and by doing a fucking amazing impersonation of her voice... I don't understand. Later on, when he was 73, he did Death Wish 4: the Crackdown. Life is something, huh?

This is one of those movies that black and white was made for... it's so shadowy and sinister looking, dripping with atmosphere. It's a lot darker and more violent than I was expecting... I know 1962 wasn't some time of puritanical innocence, but I wouldn't have guessed that they would have the villain constantly threatening to rape the family of the hero. That's intense.

Any ways, really good thriller, great score, but I'm here to talk about Mitchum. And he's awesome. He's one of the creepiest, most intimidating villains ever here, even moreso than his performance in Night of the Hunter. I always thought Robert DeNiro did a great job of getting under your skin in the Scorsese version, but he doesn't hold a candle to Mitchum, and Mitchum doesn't even seem to be trying too hard. He just oozes some sort of insinuating evil. The way his character seems to be motivated by pure hate, yet never seems to become angry or worked up. Good shit.

Oh, one last thought. The movie has an anti-violence (perhaps anti-death penalty) message and does a good job of getting it across. It sets up Peck as an upstanding liberal citizen, but as Mitchum starts to threaten him more and more, Peck becomes more and more willing to resort to violence/vengenace to protect his family. So for a while it seems like there might be some sort of Death Wish-esque, let's be tougher on criminals sort of vibe. But in the end, Peck opts not to kill Mitchum when he has the chance, and instead makes sure he goes back to prison. No fancy speeches or nothing, it gets it's point across via the actions of the characters, just the way I like it.