Cape
Cats: Thriller/Suspense|Anybody who was a Movie Place customer, anybody who walked into the store, anybody who knows me knows how I feel about Robert Mitchum. In my opinion Robert Mitchum was the most under revered actor from the “golden age” of Hollywood. The fact that this man, whose natural abilities were tremendous, only recieved one Oscar nomination (Best Supporting Actor 1944 for The Story Of G.I. Joe) in a career that spanned 50 years, is one of the biggest mistakes ever perpetuated by the industry. Almost as bad as Lauren Bacall not getting her Oscar for Mirror Has Two Faces (I am prejudiced) is this mistake. Maybe it was his drug bust in 1949 that caused this slight. He never lost, however, his bankability as a movie star.
As all time great perfomances go, this is near the top. Mr. Mitchum plays Max Cady, a recently released sex offender. The eight years he spent in jail have built up rage (with an incredibly laid back surface) against the witness that testified against him at his trial. This witness is also responsible for stopping a rape that Cady was attempting. This witness, in Cady’s mind, is responsible for his loss of his family that wanted nothing to do with him after his incarceration. This witness is Sam Bowden, played with such an upright earnestness by Gregory Peck that sharply contrasts Mr. Mitchum’s sexual predator Max Cady.
There have been comparisons made to the 1991 version. The setting is the same, Savannah Georgia, but the happy Bowden family of the 1962 film is replaced by a miserable (and more realistic) dysfuntional Bowden family that is falling apart. That does make the movie all that more interesting; a disintergrating family that is ultimatly bought together by Robert DeNiro’s vengence driven Max Cady. While Mr. DeNiro’s Cady has a reason to be angry (he finds out that his lawyer purposely did not represent him properly), Mr. Mithcum’s Cady is just a vengenace machine with a psycho sexual side who seeks revenge on a man who is responsible for his prison sentence. He did what he was convicted for but it is someone else’s fault he went away.
I always believed that the 1962 movie went about as far as a big studio release could go in 1962. All the sex, violence and sexual violence that spills forth was probably very edgy for it’s time. Max Cady picks up a woman in a bar by telling her she had one hour to get rid of the man she was in the company of because he would be back for her (he is on his way to be questioned by the police as Gregory Peck tries to start a legal ball rolling to rid himself of Max Cady). He comes back for her, they drive off, check into a motel where after a sexual interlude he savagely beats. That, in my opinion was pretty risky censorshipwise for 1962.
While shooting the film in Georgia, Mr. Mitchum was slightly concerned. He escaped from a chain gang that he had been unjustly sentenced to in the mid 1930’s. During the depression it was not uncommon that a local municipality would arrest someone for vagrancy if they had no money. A great deal of people had no money during the depression. The sentence usually was forced labor on a chain gang cleaning alongside roads and digging ditches. This provided the local municipality with cheap labor. Mr. Mitchum would have none of that and escaped. Georgia law enforcement left him alone.
Given the subject matter and the countless lewd and crude moments coming from Mr. Mitchum’s Max Cady I am shocked at the showtime for this picture. This one is not for diffenently not for kids under 12. As society started to change, loosen up, whatever, what could and could not be said or shown in a mainstream American film changed as well. This is one of those turning point films that should not be forgotten, ever.
August 10th, 2007 at 2:18 pm
I couldn’t understand some parts of this article New York City Movie Place, but I guess I just need to check some more resources regarding this, because it sounds interesting.