NIGHT OF THE HUNTER (1955), CAPE FEAR (1962), and CAPE FEAR (1991 remake)

 

NIGHT OF THE HUNTER (1955), CAPE FEAR (1962), and CAPE FEAR (1991 remake)

 

These three films, spanning more than forty years, are closely related enough that I chose to deal with them all-at-once.

 

“Night of the Hunter” (1955)

 

“Night of the Hunter” features one of the greatest film Villains of all time, brought to life by what might be the single finest Performances in Robert Mitchum’s remarkable career.

 

He plays Harry Powell, a very charismatic, very corrupt, Preacher with a great deal of blood on his hands. Notably, this Evil Holy-Man is no delusional Lunatic but instead gives us an unusually literate exploration of “radical evil,” an Evil conscious of its own Wickedness, like William Shakespeare’s Iago (from the play “Othello,” 1603). He’s not driven by any Irrational Need, Justified by any Hypocrisy, or reflecting any Fanatical Distortion of Virtue. He just knows what he wants and doesn’t care who he has to hurt to get it, so he wastes no time on Self-Justification.

 

The film is about Powell Deceiving then Murdering, an innocent widow, played by Shelly Winters, and then his Pursuit of her two children, played by Billy Chapman and Sally Jane Bruce, with the same intent, all for no purpose except Ill-Gotten Financial Gain. Let’s face it, you can’t get much worse than that.

 

There’s reason to suspect the character was shaped through Mitchum’s interpretation more than many other cases wherein actors sublimate themselves to bring a script to life. There are a couple of scenes where Powell talks with God about his Misdeeds, and certainly this could be played in such a way that the Preacher thought he was on a Divine Mission, but Mitchum’s interpretation is too mocking for that; instead, Mitchum underlines Powell’s failing to recognize any significance in any entity outside himself — not the ever-watchful eye of God – and certainly not any obligation to the lives of little children. Powell’s knuckles are famously tattooed with H-A-T-E on one hand, L-O-V-E on the other, hinting at the film’s moral absolutes, but for Powell, love has no meaning.

 

In this film, Love’s Moral Expression must be provided by another, Racheal Cooper played by Lillian Gish, the utter contrast as a woman of Purest Virtue, and who defends the threatened children. Gish’s performance is so full conviction that she saves the Character from descending into Camp.

 

And then there’s Peter Graves as the doomed Ben Harper; Grave's greatest attribute across his more than 50-year-long career was maintaining some dignity no matter how embarrassing the material he was given. Here though, in a small part, he displays depth and pathos that he would not equal again. He’s the condemned father of the children and his error in trusting Powell sets the plot in motion.

 

These amazing performances likely came about because their Director was himself a legendary Actor, Charles Laughton. This film marked the beginning of Laughton’s Directorial career but panned by Critics and a failure at the Box Office, it also marked the end of that same career, which is a tragedy, because time has been kind to this film, it is now recognized as a Masterpiece and a breakthrough moment in cinema.

 

Critics and Audiences were simply unprepared for the style. Though the plot indulged in some contrivances (the soon-to-be-executed Harper shares tantalizing hints about hidden treasure to cell-mate Powell) over-all there’s nothing especially un-Realistic about it, and a number of the Thriller-genre’s most Clichéd and Melodramatic crutches are side-stepped to strengthen the believable cause-and-effect (in the climax, Gish prioritizes protecting the children over punishing Powell; this is realistic but unusual, and results in Powell ultimately being captured off-screen by Lawmen who were never appear on-screen). It should be no surprise this fiction is rooted in True Crime. The film is an adaptation of a novel by the same name by Davis Grubb (1953) which in turn was inspired by the notorious Real-World “Lonely Hearts Killer” who was also named Harry Powers (born Harm Drenth and executed in 1932).

 

Cause-and-Effect Realism aside, Laughton saw this Battle between Good and Evil on a Small-but-still-Epic scale and expressed in Dualisms stark enough to take on aspects of a Fairy Tale, and so he told this mostly Realistic story mostly through the lens of Expressionistic visual Fantasy.

 

The visual language of Prosaic Fairy Tale Fantasy dominated the first two thirds of the film, but the climax is one of darker-than-Val-Lewton shadows; that is what everyone remembers the most: Powell invisible at the bottom of the stairs crooning, “Children…” and then leaping up, more like a predatory cat than a Mortal Man.

 

Then, moments after Cooper gets the better of him, we get a few seconds of the camera frozen on Powell’s face and his a perfectly Dumb, Animalistic, Incomprehension. It’s that image of Powell/Mitchum’s face that burned itself into my brain…

 

And here’s the amazing thing about it -- how many times has a Villain Scared you most, not when he jumps out and says BOO!, but only after he’s brought low?

 

There is nothing else like it.

 

Trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5AKK_om1VU

 

“Cape Fear” (1962)

 

When Gregory Peck was cast as the Hero of this Classic Thriller, he worried that the character of the Villain, Vengeful ex-con Max Cady, would take over the film, and Peck’s character, the loving father and respected Attorney Sam Bowden, would seem dull by comparison. And that was even before they cast Robert Mitchum as Max.

 

Though “Night of the Hunter” was a critical and financial failure, someone must have watched it because I have no doubt the earlier film played a role in Mitchum’s casting here.

 

It is said to be a pretty faithful adaptation of the novel “The Executioners” by John D. MacDonald (1957), the most significant differences being in how the Villain was so deeply driven by envy of the Hero’s life in the novel version, but revenge was the primary Motive in the film and how, by the end, the Good Man embraces an Animalistic Lust for Revenge, equal to that of the Villain, before the novel closes. 

 

You couldn’t describe “Cape Fear” as a sequel to “Night of the Hunter,” but this film’s Max is a very much an evolution of the other film’s Harry Powell. Years in prison have perfected his Self-Control, and while living inside his own head, he had no Civilizing Influences to restrain him as he Sharpens his Teeth. He’s more mature and now as prefect a Predator you’d ever hope not-to-meet on the streets of the USA. Actor Mitchum plays Character Max much like he did Character Harry, Self-Aware but unbothered bs own Evil, focusing on business of Predation over more conventionally Human Vices like Envy, which might have made Max less Iago-like and more sympathetic. Meanwhile, Peck plays his Character Sam much like he did Character Atticus Finch in “To Kill a Mockingbird” (also 1962). Peck’s version of Sam is an unshakable Moral Paragon, which is a hard Character for most Actors to convincingly sell, but always seemed Peck’s specialty.

 

The film was originally slated to be directed by Alfred Hitchcock, who had it story-boarded before quitting the project over a Contract Dispute. It was then handed over to another prominent Director, J. Lee Thompson, who was unashamed to say he’d used Hitchcock as his touch-stone throughout. Hitchcock was consistent in his style in many ways, while constantly reinventing himself in others, and my impression is that Thompson leaned most on Hitchcock’s “Shadow of Doubt” (1943) for inspiration, which is significant, given the Directorial choices made in this film’s remake (I’ll get to that later).

 

While, “Night of the …” had a Fairy-Tale quality, “Cape Fear” was a savage Noir, more Realistic, and Sexually Blunt. Though the film-makers were forbidden to use the word “Rape” and constantly badgered by censors to down-play the nature of the Threat to Sam’s young daughter, Nancy played by Lori Martin, there’s no indirectness in the nature of Max’s Predation. Moreover, it’s a bit ahead of Feminist theory here, it demonstrates Max’s sexual Predation was not based on Desire for Sex, but the Lust to exercise Masculine power. One gets the impression that Max’s Fantasies about the kind of Hell he’d unleash in Sam’s life had sustained him in Prison far more than his Fantasies of what he would do to a woman’s body once released.

 

Mitchum completely owns this film. He’s a Beast gifted with a true Psychopath’s skill for reading people, and he’s handsome and magnetic, and he knows how to use it (he spends a lot of this film with his shirt off). He studied Law in prison so, while stalking Sam, the man who put him behind bars (because he was a Witness to one of Max’s crimes), Max knows exactly where the Legal Lines are. He can stand just a little bit outside the reach of the Authorities and watch Sam twist on a Mental Hook.

 

Critics were far more positively inclined towards this film than they were toward “Night of the …” even though only seven years had passed. In this I think you can detect the USA’s growing dis-ease with its Self-Image and Faith in its own Purity, but still the Critics still displayed a cautiousness towards this film’s content, as Bosley Crowther (who liked the film) wrote, “This is really one of those shockers that provokes disgust and regret.” Clearly, no such hurdles of censorship or skittishness plagued Martin Scorsese’s 1991 remake.

 

Insanity is generally Scarier than the merely venal, because, for the most part, we believe that the venal have boundaries but the Insane do not. But something of note in older fictions (before the phenomenal success of “Psycho” (1960) which, by the way, was about a Villian far too delusional to be a proper Psychopath like Max) was how we tended to were more likely explore those how were conventionally Venal and learned by cunning to live, and be empowered, by no Boundaries. These were Human Monster embracing the sort of Corruption celebrated by Fredrich Nietzsche’s concept of the Übermensch (first explored in his book “Thus Spoke Zarathustra” 1883 and later embraced by Adolf Hitler, who seemed to have an incompetent understanding of Nietzsche’s writings). This never much applied to Horror fiction, not especially popular before the end of WWII. Meanwhile in Crime, Agatha Christie built up quite a substantial, fictional, body count during her decades and a Mystery Writer, but rarely gave us an Insane Villain, and only occasionally a sympathetic one.

 

The fact that such an exceptionally Rationally Evil Criminal is so believable makes Mitchum’s Max a lot Scarier than Robert DeNiro version in Scorsese’s remake despite DeNiro’s powerful performance in the role.

 

This film has a number of fine set pieces. Notable is the brutal and almost completely improvised scene where Max corners Sam’s wife, Peggy played by Polly Bergen, on the houseboat. Max’s rubbing the eggs on Peggy was not in the script, so her disgusted reaction was completely naturalistic. As it was unrehearsed, at least in its final form, Mitchum was a little rougher on Actress Bergen than he should have been, which probably help the Realism but also injured the Actress’ back.

 

Still, the very best scenes are the quiet ones, where Mitchum does very little, he’s just very relaxed, toying with Peck like a particularly self- satisfied cat.

 

Trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=73lZPln-A2I

 

Cape Fear (1991)

 

I wrote above that I consider this film inferior to the 1962 version, but it it still is one hell of a movie.

 

In both versions, the Motive is the same, Max Cady wants Revenge for a long Prison sentence, but in this version, Sam Bowden didn’t testify against Max (more similar to the original 1957 novel by John D. MacDonald) but had been Max’s Public Defender who suppressed a report that might have lightened Max’s sentence or even gotten him acquitted.

 

In the former, Max is Psychopathic, but wholly Sane, perfectly Cunning in his pursuit of his Desires which are unchecked by Conscience. In the remake, Max is a unhinged Sociopath, believes he is on a Campaign for Justice, so instead being without Conscience, he has a twisted Righteousness driving his Monstrousness. The former Max epitomizes radical evil, the latter embodies the Fanatical. This Max talks with God, the other didn’t, also this Max talks with God as if he’s a blessed son, while Harry Powell in the first film is mocking towards the Almighty.

 

This remake was a project that both Steven Spielberg and Martin Scorsese wanted, but they also both wanted “Shindler’s List.” In a complicated deal that I will not pretend to understand, the two Directors traded the two properties back-and-forth between them, but it is not really a surprise that Spielberg ultimately got the more Moralistic film (which was released to overwhelming praise in 1993), and Scorsese got the more Savage one.

 

Scorsese, like J. Lee Thompson before him, used Hitchcock as his touch stone, but he goes beyond that, as Scorsese clearly intended this as a full-blown Homage to the Master, akin to some of Brian De Palma’s weaker films, so less like either the rest Scorsese’s or Spielberg’s work, which generally relied on interpretation of Hitchcock’s techniques, not engaging in explicit referencing. Also, the referencing seems different than Thompson, not reminding me stylistically of “Shadow of Doubt” but demanding that I remember “Psycho” instead. Scorsese hired Sal Bass for the credit sequence because Bass famously did credit sequence, poster, and story-boarded “Psycho.” He also had Elmer Bernstein rework Bernard Herrmann’s score for the first “The Night of …” and recorded it louder than in the original film, so that it ended up reminiscent of Hermann’s more famous score for “Psycho.”

 

I will admit the Hitchcock references annoyed me early in the film as well as a number of all-too-self-conscious stylistic touches, like suddenly switching the frames from positive to negative with unclear purpose, but later in the film it turned out that Scorsese was setting up the audience for the use of those same devices later, and in the last reel their purpose was far clearer.

 

This version is far more brutal, but I can’t claim anything was gained by that. More impressive was the reimagining of Sam, and more to the point, how that reimagining that one character added depth to the Characters of Sam’s wife and daughter, played by Jessica Lange and Juliet Lewis, respectively.

 

Nick Nolte, was probably not the best person for Sam part because he’s such a physically imposing Actor, in fact much taller than DeNiro (the Cameraman was conscious of this in all scenes that they were together, also Nolte lost weight for the film and DeNiro buffed up, spending almost as much time shirtless and showing off his new muscle-mass as Mitchum did in the older version). This version of Sam is an utter weakling, so as far removed from Peck’s version as, let’s say, the likeable but ineffectual King Stefan in “Sleeping Beauty” (1959) was from the same Character, now a treacherous mutilator of women, in “Maleficent” (2014).

 

Sam struggles with Moral Issues and consistently makes the worst choices, first betraying his client Max, then groveling before him and trying to buy him off. He continually lies to his wife as he leads on a Professional Associate (Illeana Douglas) with a chaste Infidelity; it soon becomes obvious that though he kept his zipper-up this time, he hadn’t in the past. When interacting with the Police, he seems repeatedly blunders because Max got under his skin so much better and so much faster than in the first film. He refuses to Perjure himself to protect his family, yet hires Thugs to beat Max up, leaving himself even more vulnerable than the Perjury would’ve. When Max commits a double Murder in Sam’s house, Sam irrationally runs, making himself a Fugitive, and putting his family beyond the reach of the protection of Law Enforcement. At every turn, his Cowardness and Waffling increases the pain and suffering of everyone around him. Unlike the first film, which challenged the efficacy of our Civilization when faced with Radical Evil, here we have a story of a weak man playing into Max’s hands at every turn.

 

His wife, though remaining Loyal to him, is Righteously Enraged. She’s obviously stronger and smarter than her husband, but granted precious little agency because the weak man continues to pretend to be the Master of the House. But in the end, though she lacks Max’s physical Power or Savagery, she stands up to him better than her husband did.

 

As for his daughter, she shows Poor Judgement, but in a large part because her father hid the truth from her. Though she doesn’t know much about how the World works, she does know when her parents are lying to her. Perhaps the single strongest scene in the film was when Max, attracted by her burgeoning sexual curiosity, more-than-half seduces her by impersonating a High School drama teacher. The Predator’s perfect Manipulation of his Prey, contrasting with our complete understanding of the girl’s perspective, and our knowledge of Max is a brutal Rapist, makes the scene uniquely compelling and creepy. This would prove to be the then-eighteen-year-old’s Lewis Star-Making role.

 

The remake also features Mitchum, Peck, and Martin Balsam from the 1963 version. These were not mere cameos, but well-developed characters in small parts. Mitchum takes over Balsam’s role as the Cop that finds he can’t act against Max, while Balsam is a Judge appalled with Sam’s extra-judicial conduct. Peck is the most fun, as Max’s attorney, he wickedly spoofs his most famous role, Atticus Finch.

 

 

Trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7qZcHKH3Zc