Max Cady and Bob Ewell (To Kill a Mockingbird)
Anyone here think they were quite similar?
shareYes. To me the entire movie actually feels like a warmup for To Kill a Mockingbird, as each features Gregory Peck as a Southern lawyer having to deal with evil, embodied in one man. He's pals with the local lawman in both, too. His son and daughter are in danger in TKAM; in CF he has just a daughter, and she too is in serious danger near the end.
Curious (to me): ThisTV has been running Cape Fear and Pressure Point lately;two black and white movies that came out in 1962, both featuring psychopaths. James Anderson, who played Bob Ewell in To Kill a Mockingbird plays the abusive father of the psychopth (when he was a child) in Pressure Point. These three movies all came out in 1962.