From Wartime Melbourne to 'Cape Fear'

The article discusses the 1962 feature film ‘Cape Fear’, working through: - Gregory Peck’s decision to purchase the option on John D. MacDonald’s book, and have his production company make the film; similarity of his character Sam Bowden to his prior role in the film ‘The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit’. - The initial production intentions to pastiche a Hitchcock thriller; how these influenced the choice of director, film editor, art director and composer; how this is evident in the style of the film; where conscious decisions were made to depart from a Hitchcock formula. - How ‘Cape Fear’ inverts the ‘revenge tragedy’ of stage drama; pre-shoot difficulties with the censor; how the director accomodated the censor without compromising the film; examples of visual details showing this. - Shifting the setting from a vague everytown in the novel, to the American South for the film; how that alters the tone of the story; the fictional character Max Cady as described in the book; the casting of Robert Mitchum as Cady; Mitchum’s prickly behaviour on location, and why; scripted brutality and Mitchum’s acting style. - Post-war change in the hard-boiled novel with introduction of psychology (novelists discussed include Patricia Highsmith, Jeff Thomson, Robert Bloch, John D. MacDonald); Cady’s backstory in the novel; direct connections with the real Brownout Murders in WW2 Melbourne, which MacDonald had passed through at the time; deletions made for the film’s script. - Potential similarities between ‘Cape Fear’ and Peck’s next film ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’; Peck’s roles, and threats to his children in each film; social and behavioural similarities, and differences, between the evil characters Max Cady and Bob Ewell in the films; discussion of social type the characters represent; strong allusion to the criminals behind the Klutter murders, Kansas, and Walker murders, Florida, recently in national news. - Discussion of whether Bowden represents the Jeffersonian ‘just man’ popular in post-war Hollywood film; comparison with ‘High Noon’, ‘Paths to Glory’ and ‘The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance’; shows how those films adopted a deliberately mythic mode, where ‘Cape Fear’ deals with a pragmatic modern man; lists how Peck’s character uses the police to get his way, then his wife suggests he is compromising his morals; discussion of his motivations, and the final ethical decision of the movie.