Dark Highways

As I watched Body Double a particular exchange from Aaron Sorkin’s The West Wing kept running through my mind. 

President Bartlett, having been caught up in a minor controversy about an upcoming movie, is discussing a Hollywood director. 

“It’s not that Larry Posner’s movies have gratuitous sex and gratuitous violence. It’s that they suck. They’re terrible. But people go to see them because they have gratuitous sex and gratuitous violence. Now, if we could just get people to stop going to see crappy movies, Posner would stop making them. I promise you.”

That is, of course, too harsh an insult for the great Brian DePalma who has made at least six films that are untouchable in their quality including: The Untouchables (sorry), Scarface, Carlito’s Way, Blow Out, Mission Impossible and Carrie. 

However, the West Wing insult may not be too over the top for Body Double which is a leering tour through sexual obsession and the porno scene in the 1980s. 

It’s not quite porn, although IMDB claims DePalma had hoped to be the first mainstream film to show real sex on screen until the folks at Columbia nixed it. 

It’s not quite Hitchcock either although DePalma is the old master’s greatest disciple. And say what you will about his choices, DePalma understands maybe more than most of his contemporaries how to create Hitchcockian tension on screen. 

Because of the times he lived in Hitchcock was forced to suggest more than he could show. And much of his movies exist in subtext. 

DePalma just ignores all that subtext nonsense and shows you all the text you can handle. 

To be fair DePalma lived in a world where adult theaters competed with regular theaters for audiences who would, seemingly, go to both kinds of spectacles. 

Still, as mashup of Vertigo and Rear Window this had some fun moments. If you enjoy horror movie kills there is a gnarly one here. 

When it happened I thought, “Well, I’ve never seen that before.” 

And I chuckled, the way you do at ridiculously gruesome things that happen in the movies. 

There is definitely a reason why you have probably never heard of the poor lead actor in this film. Meanwhile, Melanie Griffith built a whole career off this first turn as a porn star with a heart of gold. 

She has some matter of fact dialogue that was shocking for its time but not so much in a world where Kevin Smith movies exist. 

You will not be surprised to find out who the bad guy is, nor to discover the shocking secret of the henchman who shows up midway through the thing.

It’s not a mystery, it’s a thriller and the shocks aren’t in whodunit but in other gratuitous realms. 

DePalma had so much talent as a director that he could literally take almost anything and make it into something visually appealing and fun. 

It’s not his talent I question in this instance but I certainly have questions about his taste. 

This was the last DePalma movie I wanted to see. Of his great ones I probably love Carlito’s Way the most. But even his failures are always visually striking and worth checking out. 

A film buddy of mine was upset that I gave Snake Eyes such low marks but the short version is that I’m a story guy and while the visuals are once again amazing the story in that film takes place in a world unbound by logic or reason. 

Here too, a lot of the film lives and dies by how much coincidence you are willing accept. By how much of your disbelief you can suspend to just sit back and enjoy as the flick unspools. 

I let a lot of the nonsense slide on by (really) even when the struggling actor managed to make his way immediately into a porno film. 

Even when the porno film turned into something like an MTV music video. 

Sure.

Other than those mentioned above I’ve seen a lot of DePalma’s output and this was a flick I couldn’t find for a while. 

I guess seeing it explains why the streamers shied away from it.

Sadly, my DePalmathon has gone out with a whimper instead of a bang. 

There are a few left though. Unwatched by me and still out there in the universe. 

Have any of y’all seen Black Dahlia? Is it any good?