7.9 | / 10 |
Users | 4.2 | |
Reviewer | 4.0 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
Small-town lawyer Sam Bowden's life becomes torturous when Max Cady re-enters his life. Cady went to jail for 8 years after Bowden testified that Cady attacked a young woman. Now that Cady has been released, he begins to terrorize Bowden and his family, particularly targeting Bowden's daughter, Nancy. Initially, Cady uses his newfound knowledge of the law (learned in prison) to annoy the Bowdens, then poisons the family dog... Who's next ?
Starring: Gregory Peck, Robert Mitchum, Polly Bergen, Martin Balsam, Telly SavalasPsychological thriller | 100% |
Thriller | Insignificant |
Crime | Insignificant |
Drama | Insignificant |
Video codec: VC-1
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.85:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 Mono (48kHz, 24-bit)
French: DTS 2.0 Mono
English SDH, Spanish
50GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region free
Movie | 4.0 | |
Video | 3.5 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 1.5 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
Quick: name a 1962 film starring Gregory Peck as a stalwart southern attorney with an overly precocious daughter. Well, yes, of course there’s To Kill a Mockingbird, but several months prior to that film’s release, Peck both produced (via his production company) and starred in another film that meets those criteria, the disturbing thriller Cape Fear. At the time of its release, critics and the public were viscerally upset by the film’s threatening subtext. It was, after all, 1962, when all seemed more or less right with the world, despite little upsets like the Berlin Wall and the Cuban Missile Crisis occasionally entering the fray. But on the domestic front, society hadn’t yet erupted into the roiling conflicts that would come to characterize most of the rest of the decade, and in that regard Cape Fear’s depiction of an obsessed criminal focusing on an upright attorney and his family must have struck some kind of prescient collective nerve which may have intuited that things were about to take a turn for the worse in terms of public discourse and general civility. Looking at Cape Fear now from the perspective of literally decades of more overtly violent fare, the film seems rather artfully restrained, which is not to say that is isn’t very effective in quickly establishing a highly menacing mood and then rarely if ever letting the viewer escape into their own private “safe place”. Highlighted by a career high performance by Robert Mitchum, a performance which makes even his disturbing turn in The Night of the Hunter seem relatively calm and collected by comparison, Cape Fear may not be exactly Hitchcockian (though director J. Lee Thompson is on record as stating he kind of wanted the film to be), but it is a lean, taut and ultimately extremely satisfying thriller that offers genuine chills but really not that much graphic on screen violence, despite what 1962 audiences (and critics) may have thought at the time.
Cape Fear is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Universal Films with a VC-1 encoded 1080p transfer in 1.85:1. Universal seems to be at least trying to moderate its much maligned use of DNR on its catalog titles, but this film's VC-1 codec may indicate an older high definition transfer that is only now seeing the light of day. While this is nowhere near the most egregious example of Universal's tendency to remove grain, those who dislike even moderate DNR will probably be less than completely pleased with the look of this Blu-ray. There is fine grain obviously apparent in virtually all of the film, and in fact some of the second unit footage boasts rather large amounts of grain, but there's still a slightly scrubbed look here that indicates Universal's penchant for DNR. That said, the overall image here is nicely crisp, with good to very good fine detail and really well modulated gray scale. Blacks are consistent and quite deep and whites bristle nicely without ever blooming. This is probably one of those "glass half full, glass half empty" situations where each individual viewer's sensitivity to even relatively moderate DNR will play a large part in how they respond to this presentation.
Cape Fear features a lossless DTS-HD Master Audio Mono mix pumped through two channels which offers good reproduction of all dialogue and especially of Bernard Herrmann's brooding score. J. Lee Thompson thought of Cape Fear as a kind of homage to Hitchcock, so along with then-recent Psycho alum Martin Balsam in the cast, Thompson also hired Hitchcock's frequent collaborator Herrmann, who provided a neatly minimalist score that is largely based on a four note brass motive that Herrmann tweaks in inventive ways throughout the film. Fidelity is quite good, though obviously very narrow, with good midrange and just slightly clipped sounding high range at times.
Younger filmmakers seem to think that the more graphic they make their thrillers, the scarier they will automatically be. An older film like Cape Fear proves how wrong that assertion really is. While there's no denying there is some violence in this film, it's handled really rather discursively (in fact about the only outright horror we see is Cady dispatching a bodyguard toward the end of the film). J. Lee Thompson realized the wisdom of implying violence, something aided and abetted by Mitchum's towering performance. Mitchum was a personality who often really didn't get his full due as an actor, despite amazing work in a number of films ranging from the aforementioned The Night of the Hunter to the underrated David Lean epic Ryan's Daughter (a film that is virtually screaming to be released on Blu-ray). But Mitchum's Max Cady may well be the apex of the actor's long and colorful career, and it by itself is worth the price of admission to this viscerally exciting film. The image quality here will probably have its fair share of at least minor detractors, although for a Universal catalog release, it looks pretty decent. Audio quality is just fine and the minimal supplements are enjoyable. Recommended.
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Warner Archive Collection
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Warner Archive Collection
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Indicator Series | Limited Edition
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Warner Archive Collection
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Reissue | Special Edition
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Limited Edition to 3000
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Limited Edition to 3000
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