I Wonder What It Would Have Been Like If . . .

He didn't. He was offered the role of Max Cady originally (according to the trivia page) but turned it down and wanted to do the father. I was just wondering what other people thought it would be like if he had had the balls to.

Peck isn't seen as a real villain very often, but considering the performance he managed in THE BOYS FROM BRAZIL, it might have worked OK. Hard to believe it would have been better than Mitchum's. but it would have been interesting to see what he could do.

Sometimes these old actors surprise the hell out of us. Anyone who's seen Andy Griffith in A FACE IN THE CROWD is usually blown completely away if they've only seen him as Sheriff Andy of Mayberry. Griffith's ability to play a truly evil and monstrous character is amazing, and he's probably one of the most under-utilized actors of his time. A shame, really.

I remembered his Mengele performance, but had forgotten Captain Ahab. Peck certainly was capable of doing an obsessional villain. His Max Cady might have been really interesting.

The thing is that Bowden is the less showy part to play and in some aspects simpler and in other harder. For some reason Peck has some very stiff moments in his performance which rarely hapenns to him. Think of the scene where he tells that he'll need "JUST ONE" deputy. Pure camp! Evrybody already mentioned Duel in the Sun and The Boys From Brazil where his villains were probably untinteionally comic in some scenes. I can't name any from the first, but the "Shut up, you ugly bitch!" scene in the second is my all time favorite Peck moment. So I'm sure Peck's version of Cady would have been very amusing and interesting to watch, although not as effective as Mitchum's ultimately was.

But let's think of it on the flip side - what if Mitch had played Sam? It seems sort of unlikely for him to play an average working Joe family man with inhibitions, since he usually plays a tough badass. Howerver, you should see him in Two For the Seesaw from the same year where he plays a way more complex insecure middle aged man than Peck does in Cape Fear and manages to pull it off without a hitch in his perfromance, unlike Peck. So I think that Bob could have played the Peck part better than him and as well as his Cady role.

I'm here, Mr. Man, I can not tell no lie and I'll be right here 'till the day I die