MovieChat Forums > Cape Fear (1962) Discussion > Good, but, flawed

Good, but, flawed

posted 13 years ago by Jumbajookiba
5 replies | jump to latest

Finally got around to seeing this. Enjoyable, especially Mitchum, Peck and Balsam. However, the female parts were weakly written making them annoying. Two scenes in particular, when Nancy is running around the school, WTF? Why did she run into an isolated area instead of staying in public? And Mrs Bowden's over the top heavy breathing/noises when Cady attacks her on the houseboat, she sounds like she's having sex rather than being scared of an attacker. Mitchum does creepy psycho so well yet again, in Night of The Hunter he was also standout.

I am a four eyed evil genius.

[–] BreakingDexter 13 years ago

The female parts might've been annoying, but they were smarter and less annoying than those in the remake.

[–] Ironman54 12 years ago

Don't know how old you are but I don't recall ever getting the instructions back in '62 as to what to do if attacked by a prevert. Now adays of course the usual instruction is to run to a crowded place while yelling 'hes not my father ...'
We were told 'don't talk to strangers or accept a ride from a stranger but IIRC, that was the extent of it. So, if a child didn't have prescense of mind to figure out the best thing to do in such a situatoion, I think the typical course of action would have been to run and hide in a secluded (not obvious) spot.
If kids didn't do this typically, then the experts wouldn't have needed to come up with and teach kids what to do. IIRC, the abduction and murder of Adam Walsh (?) that really brought all the attention/thought/instruction to these type of situations and that was a decade or more after this film was made.

[–] GamaRex 12 years ago

I agree with Ironman54 re Nancy. Apart from needing a confined space to create suspense, it was logical for Nancy to run to where she'd expect to be safe and find adults she knew, and that was the school. Once inside the iron fence and finding the school door locked, she was barred from getting inside to safety, and thus the chase.

I don't think this Nancy example supported the OP's case, though there were other occasions where the women's actions weren't the best choices, although all of them are targets, and in new territory for them.

[–] gribfritz2 12 years ago

The worst part wasn't running into an isolated area. A child could very well do something like that. But to successfully hide, then panic and make tons of noise as you run away, not once but twice, was hilarious.

[–] Zuider_Zee 11 years ago

The obvious sore point: Asking the local police for their help in committing a murder.