Cape Fear (1962)

Starring Gregory Peck, Robert Mitchum, Polly Bergen, Lori Martin, Martin Balsam
Directed by J. Lee Thompson
(actor & director credits courtesy IMDB.com)

A dangerous ex-convict stalks the lawyer whose testimony sent him to prison, driving him and his family on edge, convinced he's planning a violent revenge. 

Thompson delivers a great suspenseful thriller, with Mitchum echoing his psychopathic turn in The Night Of The Hunter in another memorable performance, as the clever and villainous Max Cady.  Based on John D. McDonald's novel, The Executioners, the film is not only well-directed by Thompson, but is highlighted by terrific photography by Samuel Leavitt and excellent editing by George Tomasini, augmenting Mitchum's creepy performance.  Bernard Herrmann's score is dark and atmospheric, and so cleverly used throughout the film.  A highlight is the scene in which Lori Martin, as Peck's young daughter, flees from Cady through an abandoned schoolhouse, and Herrmann's score fades in and out to showcase the sound of footfalls echoing closer and closer to her.  The unsettling undertones of the story are captured with palpable tension in this nightmarish film which for me is far more effective than Martin Scorsese's 1991 remake.

Marooned (1969)

Starring Gregory Peck, Richard Crenna, David Janssen, James Franciscus, Gene Hackman

Directed by John Sturges
(actor & director credits courtesy IMDB.com)

When a team of astronauts start wearing down after five months in space, they're ordered to return to Earth, but the engines on their ship fail, prompting desperate preparations for a rescue mission.

This film has a lot going for it, featuring an all-star cast, impressive special effects, and direction by the well-regarded Sturges.  It's an entertaining enough thriller but one deeply concerned with creating a fictional but authentic-seeming version of the actual U.S. space program, and the nonstop NASA jargon gets to be a bit tiresome.  For me, it's another example of the heightened realism sci-fi films were moving towards at the end of the 1960s, which I feel is somewhat unfortunate.  But for better or worse, the real-life journeys into space during that period ended up curtailing the imagination that went into these films, and the end result was the loss of the sense of fun prevalent in the productions of the preceding decades.