Peck, Mitchum are at the top of their games here. I thoroughly enjoyed watching Mitchum's vengeful, sadistic ex-con stalking Peck and his family throughout the movie, their moves and counter-moves, as well as the finale in the swamp. It's tense, exciting, violent, believable for it's time and place.
Nice to see familiar faces like Oliver Platt, Telly Savalas, Bergen and Martin Balsam in here too. There's enough menace, pseudo-Hitchockian suspense and location filming to push this over the top.
Only debits? Well--it'd prob. have been easier to simply find and knockoff Mitchum if Peck had wanted to badly enough, instead of only trying the one time, and it does tend to drag in the second half. But considering just how well this plays even 50 years later--well you know. It's certainly worth watching and the pluses far outweigh the minuses.
*** outta ****
Nice to see familiar faces like Oliver Platt, Telly Savalas, Bergen and Martin Balsam in here too. There's enough menace, pseudo-Hitchockian suspense and location filming to push this over the top.
Only debits? Well--it'd prob. have been easier to simply find and knockoff Mitchum if Peck had wanted to badly enough, instead of only trying the one time, and it does tend to drag in the second half. But considering just how well this plays even 50 years later--well you know. It's certainly worth watching and the pluses far outweigh the minuses.
*** outta ****