Cape Fear

The story of a lawyer and a man released from prison. Sam practises law in a small town. Years earlier he gave evidence in a case, and that evidence sent Max Cady to prison. Now Cady is out and settling in the town where Sam lives. The real tension is not violence but the uselessness of the law. Cady commits no crime. He stands in the street, watches, appears wherever the family goes. The police can do nothing because there is no offence. Sam is the person who ought to trust the law, and the law cannot protect him. Robert Mitchum plays Cady, in a performance counted among the genre's most-cited villains. Gregory Peck plays Sam; he was also one of the producers. The score is by Bernard Herrmann. The source is John D. MacDonald's novel; J. Lee Thompson directed. The film went through a long negotiation with the censorship body of the period and was approved after cuts, with the nature of the threat left at the level of implication. It was remade thirty years later. One of the important examples of its genre for anyone who likes classical suspense and Mitchum. Before you watch, know this: the threat in the film is aimed at a family and the tension is drawn out to an uncomfortable length.