“VOYEURS AND VICTIMS”

By Raymond Benson

Just when everyone thought director Brian De Palma’s work couldn’t get more controversial than 1983’s Scarface, out came 1984’s Body Double, which was simultaneously praised and reviled. Just as they had with 1980’s Dressed to Kill, feminist groups protested Double with even more vitriol due to the picture’s perceived violence against women. Many critics and audiences dismissed the movie as merely a small step above porn, given the fact that much of the plot does deal with Hollywood’s “other industry” that was soaring to new heights in the mid-80s thanks to the rise of home video and VHS. And yet, Body Double is now a certified cult classic, a De Palma fan favorite, and, frankly, in this reviewer’s opinion, one of his most accomplished and stylish efforts.

Still working in full Hitchcock Homage Mode, De Palma borrowed some of the plot of Vertigo, in which a killer uses a look-alike woman to fool our hapless and naive protagonist into believing the lady is someone else. With Pino Donaggio’s lush orchestral score accompanying the action, one is indeed reminded of Bernard Herrmann’s romanticism from that 1958 film. The suspense is plotted and paced in the manner of the Master of Suspense, and the picture also contains much of Hitch’s penchant for dark humor and satire.

Craig Wasson (remember him?) plays Jake, a struggling Hollywood actor who is recently separated from a cheating wife. He’s also claustrophobic, which of course plays into the plot. He meets another actor, Sam (Gregg Henry) at an audition; Sam graciously allows Jake to house-sit at a fancy home in the hills while Sam goes on tour. The bonus for Jake is the eye candy that can be viewed with a telescope—every night, a woman across the way performs a tantalizing striptease in a window. Jake falls for the woman (former Miss USA, Deborah Shelton) and he also unwittingly witnesses her brutal murder.

Enter Holly Body, a porn star (winningly played by Melanie Griffith in one of her first major roles), who might be somehow involved with the killing. Naturally, Jake sets out to solve the crime and insinuates himself into Holly’s world in order to do so. As we learn on the disc’s supplements, De Palma had considered casting a real porn star in the part—but Hollywood would have turned its back on him. Griffith convinced him that she could do the required “moves,” and her casting is a revelation.

Thus, this is a story about voyeurism and victims, reality and illusion, truth and trickery. Hitchcock often explored the same themes; in De Palma’s hands, Body Double becomes an exercise in visual style and storyline thrills. It’s also a scathing and humorous poke in the eye at Hollywood itself, especially the world of cutthroat auditioning and casting.

The film is very explicit; apparently De Palma once again had to fight the censors for the film to receive an “R” rating. Griffith unabashedly did her own nude scenes, even the celebrated peep-show dance through the telescope (which is set to Donaggio’s mesmerizing trace music).

Body Double got an extra publicity boost with the inclusion of the hit song “Relax” by Frankie Goes to Hollywood; a music video running regularly on MTV at the time contained tied-in clips from the film.

Twilight Time’s Blu-ray looks and sounds fabulous. Stephen H. Burum’s cinematography is lavish and colorful, very conducive to the HD format (1080p). Shot in and around Hollywood, the locations are familiar, such as scenes in the famous restaurant, Barney’s Beanery on Santa Monica Boulevard, the Beverly Center, and the Rodeo Collection mall on Rodeo Drive.

Supplements include four well-done featurettes on the making of the film, with interviews with De Palma, Griffith, Shelton, and Dennis Franz, who plays a film director molded on De Palma himself. There’s also an isolated score track; Pino Donaggio collaborated several times with De Palma—Body Double may be his best team-up with the filmmaker. The audio is 5.1 DTS-HD MA.

Twilight Time’s release of Body Double is limited to 3000 copies. 

(Note: this title is sold out at the Twilight Time web site. However, it is available from dealers on both Amazon and eBay.)