Mon 23 Aug 2010
A 1001 MIDNIGHTS review: JOHN D. MacDONALD – The Executioners.
Posted by Steve under 1001 Midnights , Reviews[9] Comments
by Bill Pronzini:
JOHN D. MacDONALD – The Executioners. Simon & Schuster, hardcover, 1958. Crest s295, reprint paperback, May 1959. Reprinted many times. Film: Universal International, 1962, as Cape Fear (with Robert Mitchum, Gregory Peck, Polly Bergen; director J. Lee Thompson). Also: Universal, 1991, as Cape Fear (with Robert De Niro, Nick Nolte, Jessica Lange; director: Martin Scorsese).
Suppose you’re a lawyer in a small Florida town, happily married, with an attractive fourteen-year-old daughter and two younger sons. Suppose some fifteen years ago you witnessed the brutal rape of a teenager and subsequently gave testimony that put the rapist, Max Cady, behind bars.
Suppose Max Cady finally gets out of prison and comes back to your town — and suppose he begins making veiled threats and following you and your family, paying special attention to your fourteen-year-old daughter, Suppose you know Cady is a dangerous psychopath, that sooner or later he intends to rape your daughter and harm you and your other loved ones.
What do you do?
This is the dilemma that faces Sam Bowden, and this is the stuff of one of MacDonald’s finest suspense novels. The tension mounts to an almost unbearable pitch as Bowden suffers frustration after frustration and Cady moves inexorably toward explosive violence.
The climax is MacDonald at his most compelling. A must-read for anyone who enjoys expertly written, beautifully plotted suspense fiction.
Surprisingly enough, considering what Hollywood has done to quality novels in the past, the film version — Cape Fear (1962) — is every bit as tense and powerful, and features a bravura performance by Robert Mitchum; he literally radiates evil in the role of Max Cady.
Almost as good are Gregory Peck and Polly Bergen as the Bowdens. Don’t miss it when it appears on the Late Show.
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Reprinted with permission from 1001 Midnights, edited by Bill Pronzini & Marcia Muller and published by The Battered Silicon Dispatch Box, 2007. Copyright © 1986, 2007 by the Pronzini-Muller Family Trust.
Editorial Comment: This will be John D. MacDonald week here on this blog, at least for the next couple of days. Besides the three JDM reviews posted today, coming up soon will be two more: The Good Old Stuff and The Green Ripper, by Bill Pronzini and Marcia Muller respectively; then two by David Vineyard: The Only Girl in the Game and A Deadly Shade of Gold.
August 23rd, 2010 at 7:40 pm
Re Mitchum’s performance, Polly Bergen, who was already an old friend of Mitchum’s when this film was made, said in the scene on the houseboat he was so intense he scared the hell out of her. It shows on film.
This is MacDonald as a superb suspense novelist. I would argue (and have) that he is much more than just that, but no one should ever doubt he was among the best of suspense writers.
But while this is slick expertly written suspense novel, even here there are touches of other things, the casual corruption of a small Southern town, the strength and class of Sam Bowden (who is willing to bend his own high standards when his family is threatened), and above all, Max Cady, the most frightening and believable of JDM’s sociopathic monsters, and in Mitchum’s hands one of the screens most memorable bad guys.
A good many critics raved about the remake of CAPE FEAR by Martin Scorcese, and since it will likely come up, let me say, that while it is an expertly made film, it is irreparably harmed by Robert De Niro’s over the top campy performance of Max Cady as Hannibal Lector.
Compare De Niro’s horror movie schtick to Mitchum’s quiet but explosive performance and you have a microcosm of everything that is wrong with the noisy showy remake, and everything that is masterful about the simpler original. The original knows exactly what it is, a tight and smart suspense film with fine performances. The remake is about as subtle as a birthday cake on fire, parts of it are worth watching, but over all it just doesn’t add up.
August 23rd, 2010 at 8:29 pm
I’ve not seen the remake, nor have I felt any urgency to do so, although I’m sure I will someday. I have a feeling, though, that watching the Robert Mitchum film again will happen before I do. I think it’s one of his best pictures, and that’s saying something, as most of his movies are among my all-time favorites.
— Steve
August 23rd, 2010 at 10:02 pm
There are some excellent parts of the remake, Freddie Francis cinematography, the remix of the original Herrmann score by Elmer Bernstein, but while Scorcese tries to go a bit deeper into the characters and motivations he buries it under a ton of too showy style and cartoony horror movie schlock, and frankly De Niro gives a terrible performance, all of his worst traits and quirks wrapped around a simply silly interpretation of one of the screens best villains.
J. Lee Thompson is no match for Scorcese as a director, but his straight forward interpretation, the good performances, the solid script, the relative restraint, and Mitchum’s Max Cady make the original shine.
Frankly no one in the remake comes anywhere near approaching the the original, and the Lolita interpretation of the teen girl in the Scorcese version is just plain bad taste, though Juliette Lewis gives a good performance.
If you are a Scorcese fan you will likely think his version is brilliant, I’m not, and I’m not, like me you will just find it over directed and over acted. It reminded me a bit of the remake of PSYCHO. All it really added was color.
Leonard Maltin pegged it exactly: “CAPE FEAR for the Freddy Krueger generation.”
August 24th, 2010 at 6:24 am
Herman’s score for CAPE FEAR, along with the perfs by Mitchum and Peck, lift this out of the ordinary. The director’s output is generally undistinguished except for this classic.
August 24th, 2010 at 12:07 pm
Dan
I semi agree about Thompson, though his GUNS OF NAVARONE is one of my all time favorite films. Certainly that string of Charles Bronson films he did later is pretty grim.
His British films are notable thought, AN ALLIGATOR NAMED DAISY, ICE COLD IN ALEX, FLAME OVER INDIA (one of the best action films ever made), I AIM AT THE STARS, and TIGER BAY (a brilliant and touching tale of a fugitive hidden by a lonely teenage girl).
Of his later American films I liked MACKENNA’S GOLD, THE CHAIRMAN, and WHITE BUFFALO, but none of them ar equal to CAPE FEAR, GUNS OF NAVARONE, or his British films.
August 24th, 2010 at 4:05 pm
Thompson did AN ALLIGATOR NAMED DAISY?!?! I’ll have Sarris revise his book!
August 24th, 2010 at 4:32 pm
One blogger’s take on Thompson can be found here:
http://www.coffeecoffeeandmorecoffee.com/archives/2009/08/northwest_front.html
which lead me to this much longer overview of his career:
http://www.screenonline.org.uk/people/id/463923/
August 24th, 2010 at 4:35 pm
Dan
Sarris will have to revise then because according to every other source,including IMDb, and the credits at the start of the film, Thompson directed AN ALLIGATOR NAMED DAISY.
August 24th, 2010 at 4:49 pm
Dan
Film books are notoriously unreliable. Maltin still insists that YOJIMBO (and thus all its remakes) is based on Hammett’s THE GLASS KEY — it’s not, it’s based on RED HARVEST, and the mistake has been there uncorrected since the first edition of Maltin’s famous guide.
Who does Sarris say directed DAISY, anyway?