Max Cady
| Max Cady | |
|---|---|
| First appearance |
The Executioners (book) Cape Fear (film) |
| Created by | John D. MacDonald |
| Portrayed by |
Robert Mitchum (1962 film) Robert De Niro (1991 film) |
| Information | |
| Gender | Male |
| Nationality | American |
Max Cady is a fictional character and the primary antagonist of the John D. MacDonald novel The Executioners. He was portrayed by Robert Mitchum in Cape Fear (1962 film) and Robert De Niro in Martin Scorsese's Cape Fear (1991 film).
In both film versions of MacDonald's novel, Cady is a criminal with an obsessive grudge against an attorney named Sam Bowden (played by Gregory Peck in the first film and by Nick Nolte in the remake) who sent him to prison for rape. While in prison, Cady teaches himself to read as he nurtures his hatred of Bowden, made especially intense when his wife divorces him and takes their child. Upon his release, he terrorizes Bowden and his family, stalking his wife at their house and attempting to seduce Bowden's teenaged daughter. After Bowden's failed attempts to get rid of Cady with bribery and a restraining order, he hires street thugs to rough Cady up, which only succeeds in making him angrier and more determined to make sure Bowden "learns all about loss". Cady tracks the family to its summer home in the titular North Carolina beach town of Cape Fear and nearly kills them all. In the climax of the first film, Bowden puts Cady under citizen's arrest; in the second, Cady apparently drowns after a fight with Bowden.
Significant differences are seen between the way in which Cady is portrayed in the original film and the remake. Mitchum's characterization is that of a sleazy, degenerate con artist. De Niro's is of a homicidal sociopath, who viciously attacks everything and everyone Bowden holds dear (he even beats and rapes one of Bowden's colleagues). The remake also sheds some light on Cady's background in a rural Pentecostal family who does snake handling and drank strychnine to achieve religious ecstasy.
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