CAPE FEAR (1962)

Director: J. Lee Thompson

Writers: James R. Webb adapting John D. MacDonald’s novel The Executioners 

Producer: Sy Bartlett 

Cast: Gregory Peck. Robert Mitchum, Polly Bergen, Lori Martin, Martin Balsam, Telly Savalas, Barrie Chase, Jack Kruschen, Joan Staley, Edward Platt, Paul Comi, John McKee, Ward Ramsey, Page Slattery, Will Wright. Norma Yost, Mack Williams, Tom Newman, Alan Reynolds, Alan Wells, Allan Ray, Paul Levitt, Herb Armstrong, Bunny Rhea, Cindy Carol (as Carol Sydes) 

Recently released convict Max Cady (Robert Mitchum) settles in the southern town where lawyer Sam Bowden (Gregory Peck) lives with his wife Peggy (Polly Bergen) and his young daughter Nancy (Lori Martin). Eight years ago Sam Bowden’s witness testimony helped to convict Cady for the crime of assaulting a woman. Now Cady starts a war of nerves with veiled threats against Bowden and his family. Cady has studied the law while in prison and knows how to torment Bowden without crossing any legal lines. Sam Bowden is increasingly provoked to resort to illegal means to protect his family. 

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Gregory Peck stars as the stalwart family man and lawyer Sam Bowden. He has an ideal life that becomes threatened only because he did the decent thing by interrupting Max Cady’s assault of a woman and testifying as a witness in Cady’s trial. Bowden is always likable and his situation becomes quite sympathetic, yet he maintains our interest with his reactions to Cady’s provocations.

Robert Mitchum played one of the greatest movie villains of all time in Cape Fear. His Max Cady is smart, stealthy, brutal, and funny. He is one laid-back bastard that steals every scene he is in which is the least of his crimes. This performance should make anyone a Mitchum fan. 

My favorite scene is the rendezvous at a bar that Peck’s Sam Bowden has with Mitchum’s Max Cady. All Bowden wants is to make an arrangement to get Cady to stop his harassment, but Cady won’t relent. This is the only time we are given any insight into Cady’s character that he reveals in casual seeming conversation over drinks to the object of his hatred. It seems that the only way Cady can relate to anyone is when he is justifying his motives for the threat he poses. He enjoys explaining his grudge and refusing to be paid off by Sam Bowden. The fun Cady has prolonging this encounter with the increasingly disgusted Bowden is Mitchum at his best. We can’t help but enjoy this scene even as we continue to empathize with the dilemma that Peck’s Bowden has trying to deal with this sociopath. 

The real tension in the story is not just the danger that a violent and vengeful man like Max Cady poses to the Bowden family, but that Cady can keep haunting and taunting Sam Bowden with the implied threat of his presence. Legally, Bowden can’t do anything about this, yet he knows he can’t wait until it is too late. It becomes a conundrum for this lawyer to realize that the law can’t intervene until after Cady actually acts out his vague threats against Bowden and his family. This prompts Bowden to consider more drastic actions. 

Polly Bergen, as Sam Bowden’s wife Peggy, is not only a potential victim of Cady’s vengeance, she is also an additional voice of reason in the Bowden family regarding how to deal with the ex-convict’s looming menace. In a film full of threatening scenes, her confrontation with Mitchum’s Max Cady is probably the most harrowing. 

There are many other fine performances from young Lori Martin as Sam Bowden’s daughter Nancy, Martin Balsam as Bowden’s police chief pal Mark Dutton, and Telly Savalas as private detective Charlie Sievers. A real stand out is dancer Barrie Chase in an early dramatic role as the unfortunate “pick up” Diane Taylor. She uses some subtle body language to effectively indicate the pain and physical impairment of her injuries after a sadistic evening with Max Cady. That also gives us a graphic hint of the sort of treatment Cady has in mind for Sam Bowden’s wife and child. 

Cape Fear was very controversial for its ongoing theme of sexual violence. Max Cady makes his carnal interest in Sam Bowden’s wife and adolescent daughter quite clear. Rape is part of Cady’s revenge tactics that he has used before against his ex-wife. 

Director J. Lee Thompson had just directed star Gregory Peck in the hit war epic The Guns of Navarone (1961). Thompson keeps the tension high in Cape Fear with lots of shadows, stark lighting, prolonged stalking sequences, sudden bursts of violence, and scenes that cut away from ongoing violence to suggest greater brutalities in our imaginations. He would become a frequent Charles Bronson director and dealt once again with the theme of frustration created by the justice system’s legal constraints in the thriller 10 to Midnight (1983). 

Cape Fear is an intense game of cat and mouse between a clever, sadistic brute and a man of integrity trying to bend the rules to protect his family. This film has all the elements that a successful thriller needs with the added bonus of Robert Mitchum’s terrific performance as Max Cady that you ain’t never gonna forget. Never.

HORROR EXPRESS (1972)

Director: Eugenio Martín

Writers: Arnaud d’Usseau, Julian Halevy

Producer: Bernard Gordon

Cast: Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing, Telly Savalas, Alberto de Mendoza, Sylvia Tortosa, Julio Peña, Helga Liné, Alice Reinheart, Ángel del Pozo, George Rigaud, Victor Israel, José Jaspe, Faith Clift, Juan Olaguibel, Barta Barri, Peter Beckman, Hiroshi Kitatawa, Vicente Roca, José Canalejas, Allen Russell, José Marco 

In 1906, British anthropologist Professor Sir Alexander Saxton (Christopher Lee) discovers the frozen remains of a prehistoric ancestor of man in China. He packs his find in a crate and hauls it back to Shanghai. There he loads it aboard the Trans-Siberian Express to return to Europe. However, Saxton’s “fossil” is alive, and its encounters with people leave them dead with blank, white eyes. 

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Horror Express is a quirky Spanish production that takes you on a strange ride. Just when you think you know where it is going, it veers off in another direction keeping it lively and unpredictable. Its mix of mystery, science fiction, and horror aboard a passenger train traversing the frozen expanse of Siberia provides a unique tale in an interesting and isolated setting.

This film’s story is supposed to be inspired by the classic John W. Campbell 1938 science fiction horror tale “Who Goes There?” That was the source for one of the greatest sci-fi fright flicks of all-time, The Thing from Another World (1951), and John Carpenter’s 1982 remake The Thing. There was even a 2011 prequel to the Carpenter film that was also called The Thing. Although Horror Express shares some basic ideas with the original novella, it also contributes plenty of other novel touches making it a very satisfying and offbeat film. 

The film boasts stars Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing, and Telly Savalas. As Professor Saxton, Lee manages to do that British stiff upper lip, upper class arrogance better than anyone, yet somehow still manages to be heroic. Peter Cushing is Lee’s genial counterpoint as Dr. Wells. He also gets the funniest line of the film. As the ranting and brutal Cossack officer Captain Kazan, Savalas steals every scene he is in. 

Another standout in the cast is Alberto de Mendoza. He plays the monk Father Pujardov. His character demonstrates how easily the spiritually devout can lapse into evil fanaticism. 

There are two beauties in the cast that would both go on to co-star in another Spanish fright flick The Loreley’s Grasp (1973). Silvia Tortosa plays Irina Petrovski, the wife of an elderly Polish count. Apparently with her husband’s blessing, Irina seems to be openly enjoying the chance to flirt and flaunt herself before Professor Saxton, especially to rouse the ire of the Petrovskis’ spiritual advisor Father Pujardov. Frequent Euro-horror siren Helga Liné briefly appears as the stowaway Natasha. I first encountered Liné in this film, which plays no small part in it becoming a favorite Euro-horror of mine. With her graceful figure, auburn hair, and green eyes, her beauty is so striking and her demeanor so smoldering, that I have to believe that anything she appears in is worth watching. Before drool shorts out my keyboard, I had better move on… 

I want to refrain from discussing too many particulars about the menace in this movie and how it functions. The fun in this story is discovering those strange turns along with the characters. It could be argued that in a microscope examination by Professor Saxton and Dr. Wells that they all too quickly find exactly the needed images to tell them the origin of the threat they are dealing with. In the interests of keeping the story moving, it is excusable. We don’t want to watch hours of slide preparations before they arrive at the same conclusion, do we? Of course not, there would be less time for an already too limited amount of Helga Liné footage! Oops! Got to wipe off my keyboard again… 

John Cacavas provides a nice score that is melancholy and haunting, but can provide some horror stings when needed. An interesting idea is that the main theme of the movie is also a tune whistled by the baggage man (Victor Israel) that is learned and repeated by the movie’s menace. 

Director Eugenio Martín provides some eerie images throughout the film, and he makes fine use of the train car set and miniatures from his earlier film Pancho Villa (1972) that also starred Telly Savalas. I wish Martín had directed many more horror films. He did return to the genre the following year with A Candle for the Devil, aka It Happened at Nightmare Inn (1973). 

For the well-traveled horror buff, speeding through the frigid wastes of Siberia aboard Horror Express is a trip that can’t be missed. Horror heroes Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing sharing a compartment with Helga Liné in her slinky green dress is such fine company that being menaced by an unpredictable monster seems to be a perfectly reasonable risk. Need I say it again? Helga Liné! My keyboard can’t take much more…