Saturday 21 October 2023

Cape Fear (1962 J Lee Thomspon)

Weirdly like watching a Hitchcock, with Herrmann score and Hitchcocky moments - like the lurking figure in the hall that is a hanging hat and coat.

George Tomasini has this incredible way of dissolving into the next scene, almost like liquid, even before a sentence is finished.

It's overall a very smoothly crafted film.

Of the scene with Mitchum and Polly Bergen on board the boat, Mitchum wound himself up into a fury and they just shot without rehearsal. He ripped his hand open on a cabinet and used her as a battering ram to break a door down. "It went much further than we were even able to use" said the director. So in the moment were they that they didn't even hear the instruction to cut and had to be separated. Afterwards Mitchum hugged the actress saying "I'm so sorry..." It certainly comes over on screen.


Lori Martin is the at-risk teenager. Lee was good with young actors e.g. Hayley Mills in Tiger Bay

Amazing dream scene overlays


More striking photography from Sam Leavitt

With Martin Balsam, Jack Kruschen, Telly Savalas.

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