by A.J.
Night 3: Thriller Night
“You still don’t get it, do you, counselor?”
The original classic Cape Fear is a thriller, not a horror movie, but there is enough suspense and deep dread to make it a great alternative to bloody slashers or graphic horror movies. Little about it is dated; there are scenes that will make your skin crawl. The two elements that make Cape Fear so effective are the powerful, ominous score by the legendary Bernard Herrmann and the chilling performance of Robert Mitchum as one of the screen's most sinister and dangerous villains: Max Cady.
It seems that Cady lives for only one reason, which is to take revenge on Sam. Despite never directly stating it, because of Production Code censorship, director J. Lee Thompson still makes it clear that Cady’s revenge plan is to torture and rape Sam’s wife and young daughter. By far the most uncomfortable scene in the movie is Cady standing on a pier eating ice cream and watching Sam's daughter clean their boat. Cady tells Sam that his daughter is almost as juicy as his wife. Sam punches him but Cady does not fight back and there is now a whole pier full of witnesses to Sam hitting him first. In another scene, shocking only because it is in a movie made in 1962, Cady uses his sinister charm to seduce a woman who he later rapes and beats (offscreen) knowing that she won't file charges or testify because it would mean recounting and explaining the details of the assault publicly. Cady does this merely to demonstrate what he is capable of. Thompson walked a tightrope with the censors with scenes like this in addition to scenes of actual physical violence.
Early in his career, Thompson worked with Hitchcock and often approached a scene by asking himself what Hitchcock would have done. He makes great use of suspense, letting the audience know what the characters do not. He also includes some fake-out jump scares, like Sam's wife being startled by a hatrack in the shadows late at night. A much more consequential fake out happens later in the movie.
When Thompson was asked if had any objections to hiring Bernard Herrmann to compose the score, his response was, "I should think not!" Herrmann, who had already composed memorable scores for Hitchcock's Vertigo, North by Northwest, and Psycho, created another ominous and evocative score. It still packs a punch with its powerful horns and suspenseful strings. Like Herrmann’s most famous scores, there's a good chance that you've heard it even if you haven't seen the movie. When Martin Scorsese remade Cape Fear in 1991, he reused much of Herrmann's original score.
This might sound like a pro-vigilante or “extra-legal” justice movie. After all, the law keeps failing the upstanding citizen and protecting the outsider instead, but ultimately this is not a cynical movie. I must admit I was reminded of the idealistic duel played by Batman and the Joker in Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight. The Joker and Cady essentially have no goal other than to cause pain and destruction and goad their opponents into breaking their moral codes. If Batman or Sam breaks their code to defeat and punish their antagonist, then they have lost. Of course, Peck's Sam is much less exciting than Batman. 
Peck also worked as a producer on film and even chose the source material, a pulp novel by John D. MacDonald titled The Executioners. He chose a new title by looking at a map until he found an interesting name because sometimes, he said, “geographical titles” were successful like Casablanca or Dodge City. I think only the Coen brothers with Fargo have had as much success with picking a random city as the title of their movie. 
Cape Fear (1962) is airing on TCM on Sunday, October 27th at 1AM CT. It is also available to stream on Prime Video.
