BODY DOUBLE

Deborah Shelton and Craig Wasson

BODY DOUBLE (1984). Director/Producer/Co-writer: Brian De Palma.

Jake (Craig Wasson), a struggling actor, gets fired from a vampire movie because of his claustrophobia, and finds out his girlfriend (Barbara Crampton) is cheating on him. A new acquaintance, fellow actor Sam (Gregg Henry), tells him he knows of a sublet he can use for awhile, an obvious sex-pad high over Hollywood. Sam shows Jake a telescope and points it toward a house across the way where the pretty occupant does a nightly naked  and provocative dance. Before long Jake is following this woman (Deborah Shelton), and discovers that someone else much more sinister is after her as well. Then there's a horrible murder ...

Craig Wasson and Gregg Henry

Body Double is another one of De Palma's homages to Hitchcock -- especially Vertigo and Rear Window -- although I don't imagine that the Master would have been satisfied with this convoluted and often senseless screenplay which doesn't add up very well when you give it any thought (and which also cries out for meatier characterizations). One could also argue quite successfully that De Palma's attempts to cover up the true identity of the killer are fairly clumsy. On the other hand, none of that matter's much if you like De Palma's post-Hitchcockian style and are willing to suspend disbelief almost from the first frame to the last, although De Palma really pushes it in at least one sequence.

For instance, there's the ludicrous scene when Wasson and Shelton, after the latter has had her purse snatched on the beach and Wasson has pursued the thief, begin suddenly making out (these two are an improbable couple in the first place) and De Palma apes the revolving-camera kiss of Vertigo. But while Jimmy Stewart and Kim Novak might be seen as a somewhat improbable couple themselves, Hitchcock's scene plays beautifully (for one thing, there\s an emotional connection between the two people) and the scene in Body Double is actually laughable. For this and other reasons Body Double was excoriated by the critics, although -- the beach scene aside -- it is very skillfully and smoothly directed by De Palma. At times De Palma seems to be channeling Italian director Dario Argento as well as Hitchcock.

De Palma also came in for heat because of the gory (if not relentlessly graphic) power drill murder of the cringing female victim. It's all well and good for the director to claim that he's only operating on the "damsel in distress" principle, but even then women were not exactly weak and helpless. (At least Dario Argento is more honest in that he simply prefers beautiful, sexy women as victims  -- we'll ignore for now what that says about his psychology.) De Palma found the criticism of this sequence laughable, but he knew it would outrage people and he also knew that the controversy would sell lots of tickets.

Wasson and Melanie Griffith

De Palma not only imitates Hitchcock but his own Dressed to Kill. A main character teams up with a hooker to unmask a killer in Dressed, and in Body Double Jake at least tries to team up with the porn star Holly Body (Melanie Griffith, whose mother Tippi Hedren starred in two Hitchcock classics). At one point both characters participate in a rock video for the song "Relax" by the group Frankie Goes to Hollywood. This scene seemed sexy and outre in the eighties but now seems just a bit forced and clunky. In any case, you get the impression that De Palma, although he waves away charges of misogyny, is one of those truly old-fashioned fellows who classifies women as either virgins or whores!

Craig Wasson gives a very good performance as the somewhat nerdy, voyeuristic but concerned Jake (even if the shadowy victim in this is pretty much forgotten by story's end). Shelton and Griffith are supposed to be little more than sexy kewpie dolls and are good enough on that level. Busy actor Guy Boyd makes an impression as the distrustful Detective McLean. Pino Donaggio's score is effective and Stephen H. Burum's cinematography is first-rate.

NOTE: De Palma had wanted to use an actual porn star to play Holly Body, but the studio objected too strenuously. De Palma substituted this thriller for Cruising.

Verdict: Your call. I enjoyed it while being aware of its all-too-obvious flaws. ***.