Cubs BCB After Dark: Who is the Cubs’ SMVP?

WASHINGTON, DC - AUGUST 12: Dansby Swanson #7 and Alex Bregman #3 of the Chicago Cubs celebrate after the game against the Washington Nationals at Nationals Park on August 12, 2026 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Scott Taetsch/Getty Images) | Getty Images

It’s Wednesday evening here at BCB After Dark: the most excellent spot for night owls, early risers, new parents and Cubs fans abroad . Come on in and cool off with us. There’s no cover charge. The dress code is casual. We validate parking. The hostess will seat you now. Bring your own beverage.

BCB After Dark  is the place for you to talk baseball, music, movies, or anything else you need to get off your chest, as long as it is within the rules of the site. The late-nighters are encouraged to get the party started, but everyone else is invited to join in as you wake up the next morning and into the afternoon.

Last night I asked you to grade the job Cubs manager Craig Counsell has done this year. The Cubs are 70-50 as I write this and 70 percent of you thought that Counsell deserved an “A” for that.

Here’s the part with the music and the movies. You can do with that what you will. I do hope you enjoy it, however.

Tonight we feature legendary pianist Bill Evans live in 1979 playing “Someday My Prince Will Come,” which has been a jazz standard ever since Evans’ longtime collaborator Miles Davis covered it in 1961. Joining Evans is bassist Marc Johnson and drummer Joe La Barbera.

Martin Scorsese agreed to direct a remake of Cape Fear as a favor to Steven Spielberg, who pulled out of the project because it was too violent for him. Scorsese had no such qualms. The result certainly isn’t a personal statement like so many Scorsese films are, but it is a loving tribute to a classic Hollywood film. It’s also a violent psychological thriller builds upon the original in some very interesting ways, but is overshadowed by an over-the-top performance by star Robert De Niro.

The basic plot of Cape Fear remains unchanged in the 1991 version. Max Cady (De Niro) is a serial rapist just out of prison (after 14 years instead of eight) and wants revenge upon Sam Bowden (Nick Nolte). Max stalks Sam’s family, which includes his wife Leigh (Jessica Lange) and his 15-year daughter Danielle (Juliette Lewis). The police are unable to do anything because Cady is careful to not step over the line into anything illegal, or at least nothing illegal that they can prove. Eventually Sam is driven to increasingly desperate and even criminal activity to get rid of Max until there is a showdown on a houseboat on the Cape Fear River in North Carolina. Scorsese adds a massive storm to the climax of this version, which turns the metaphorical maelstrom of the climax into a literal maelstrom as well.

But where director J. Lee Thompson’s 1962 version portrays the Bowden family as a paragon of postwar American normalcy and decency, Scorsese’s Bowden family is a mess. Sam and Leigh left Georgia for North Carolina after Sam had had an affair, and he’s close to having another one. Sam and Leigh’s loud arguments have had an effect on Danielle, who is more rebellious and less innocent than in the 1962 version.

The Bowden’s daughter is not the child of the 1962 version. Instead, she’s a young woman of 15 coming into her own sexuality. Rather than being repelled by Max, she’s very much attracted to him. In what is the creepiest scene in the film, Max seduces an all-too-willing Danielle in the basement of her school. It’s an emotional seduction at this point rather than a physical one, but it’s all-too-disturbing nonetheless.

The violence is far more explicit in the 1991 version, which is too be expected.

Scorsese also changes Max’s motivation and goals. In the Robert Mitchum version, Sam is a lawyer who just happens to have witnessed Max’s crime and testified against him. In Scorsese’s telling, Sam was Max’s defense attorney. Sam had an opportunity to smear the character of Max’s victim by bringing up her promiscuousness at trial. However, Sam knew that Max was a serial rapist, was guilty of this attack and he would attack more women if he weren’t convicted. So Sam hid the evidence, which is a clear violation of legal ethics, which Max finds out about during his 14 years of reading legal works. So rather than being an innocent who just got caught up in a storm beyond his control, Nolte’s Sam is an instrument in his own destruction, even if it was for noble reasons.

In both versions, Max blames Sam for Max’s loss of his wife and child. In the Mitchum version, Max wants Sam to feel the same loss as he feels. But De Niro’s Max is more insidious. He doesn’t just want Sam to feel his loss, he wants to turn Sam into the same psychopathic monster that he is. Sam’s damaged soul gives Max that opportunity.

For good or bad, De Niro’s Max Cady is a lot . Pretty much everything he does is over-the-top. The southern accent is exaggerated, the violence is turned up to eleven, De Niro bulked up for the role and there are violent and symbolic tattoos all over his body. Whereas the 1962 Max Cady has that attractive Mitchum cool about him, it’s hard to think that anyone could be fooled by the sleaziness of De Niro’s version. (Unless it’s a dumb 15-year-old girl trying to hurt her parents, I guess.)

De Niro’s Cady is more of a symbol of barbarism than an actual real human being. That’s not necessarily a criticism because many great villains in literature are more symbols than flesh-and-blood characters. But again, De Niro’s Cady is a lot . It’s a bit too much for me.

But certainly, if you’re casting a film in 1961 and you need to replace Robert Mitchum, De Niro seems like the perfect choice. Nolte is an odd fit in a Gregory Peck role, but when you get at that “Max wants to turn Sam into him” idea, then Nolte begins to make more sense.

Scorsese tries to pump up the female roles in the film, but unfortunately he turns Jessica Lang into a screaming, wronged wife. I prefer Polly Bergen, p...

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