A TAPE! Editorial · Body Heat · 1981 · Lawrence Kasdan
New to the Criterion Collection“It’s the only way
we can be together!”
Lawrence Kasdan’s breakthrough film BODY HEAT has recently earned its rightful place in The Criterion Collection!
7 films where
they had to go.
To mark the occasion, let’s take a look at some more films where premeditated spousal homicide was clearly the only option.
1944 · Billy Wilder
Double
Indemnity
You knew we had to start with this one, the gold standard for this subsect of cinema and undoubtedly one of the seminal film noirs of all time. Smooth talking insurance salesman Walter Neff (a hardboiled Fred MacMurray) collides with the enchanting but poisonous Phyllis Dietrichson (a wicked Barbara Stanwyck) and together, dame and heel, plot to set her husband up for a fall with the help of a devastatingly convenient life insurance policy. Walter not only wants Phyllis all for himself but to prove he can outplay every insurance fraud trick in the book. Not to be outdone, Phyllis is playing a little game of her own, while Walter’s boss Barton Keys (Edward G. Robinson, in a crackerjack, movie stealing performance) is wise to the whole grift from the get go.
Made during the height of the Hays Code era in Hollywood, director Billy Wilder (Some Like It Hot, Sunset Boulevard) had his work cut out for him adapting James M. Cain’s crime novella for the screen. Instituted by the Motion Picture Association of America in 1934 and named after its leader of the time, Will H. Hays, this self imposed rulebook prevented explicit depictions of depravity, drug use, sex and crime in American Hollywood productions. Characters that indulged in such things had to pay for their acts by the time “The End” appeared on screen so having two people engage in adultery, commit murder AND get away with the whole shabang was categorically not on.
Needless to say, making this “shameful” potboiler palatable with such guidelines was a profound creative challenge making the resulting film all the more remarkable. Working with Raymond Chandler (The Big Sleep) and cinematographer John Seitz (The Lost Weekend), Wilder fashions a Swiss-watch of a screenplay with some of the sharpest rat-a-tat banter this side of His Girl Friday, while establishing the key aesthetic language of what we now know today as American film noir with bravura. Essential viewing simply doesn’t get more essential.
1995 · Gus Van Sant
To Die For
Suzanne Marreto, sorry, Suzanne STONE (her professional name), always knew who she was and who she wanted to be but sadly the town of Little Hope, New Hampshire was just too dang stubborn to get out of her way! This macabre and often hilarious satire that showed the world what Nicole Kidman could REALLY do tells the story of an unflappably ambitious (and perpetually camera ready) force of nature who zeros in on the one thing between her and her dream of being a career newswoman.
Joaquin Phoenix, Casey Affleck and Allison Folland (what happened to her?) are achingly superb as the troubled, misfit teens Suzanne manipulates into carrying out what will be her inadvertent shot at fame. A wonderfully twisted look at the American obsession with celebrity and crime riddled scandal; made all the more relevant in today’s true-crime affixed culture by director Gus Van Sant’s inspired use of mockumentary framing for the whole sordid story. Also in this stacked cast are Illeana Douglas, Kurtwood Smith, Wayne Knight, Holland Taylor and a wonderfully dim Matt Dillon as the “poor bastard” du jour. Sharply adapted from Joyce Maynard’s novel by comedy legend Buck Henry (the co-creator of Get Smart), this is not only ripe for a rewatch but also makes one wonder why Van Sant doesn’t do more comedies.
1955 · Henri-Georges Clouzot
Diabolique
With masterpieces like The Wages of Fear and Le Corbeau, maverick director Henri-Georges Clouzot was no stranger to exploring the dark sides of human nature but things never got quite as ghoulish as they do in this mesmerising, all-time skin-crawler.
Within the walls of a boarding school in the western suburbs of Paris, two teachers plot to rid their lives of the one problem they have in common: the despicable, sadistic headmaster (Paul Meurisse). Wife (Vera Clouzot) and mistress (Simone Signoret) forge a tenuous but imperative bond to carry out a perfect murder…. And then things get really strange! An ingenious romp that influenced a generation of suspense and horror, including the likes of Hitchcock’s Psycho, this is a true chiller treat that I’m behooved to not describe in any more detail. Easily one of Clouzot’s greatest works and an absolute must see!
One novel · Two adaptations · 1946 / 1981
The Postman
Always Rings Twice
04A · The Postman Always Rings Twice
1946 · Tay Garnett
For many years this novel by James M. Cain, (yes the same writer of Double Indemnity, shocking I know), was deemed morally unfilmable due to the aforementioned Hays production code. However, after the breakout success of Billy Wilder’s film, Tay Garnett would direct another Cain adaptation that’s likely to put an even tighter knot in your stomach.
Lana Turner and John Garfield are positively smouldering in this crackling yarn of a drifter named Frank whose feet are “always itching to go somewhere” and kept woman Cora who’s determined to make something of herself and the roadside diner her oafish older husband stubbornly wants to sell. Cecil Kellaway plays one of cinema's great cuckolds remaining hilariously oblivious to the powder keg that’s ready to go off and once it does, that’s only the beginning. Tap dancing around that pesky Hays code at every turn, this live wire act of hot-tempered passion decaying into poisonous duplicity showcases one of the most infamous examples of carnal “suggestion” in that prickly era of Hollywood. Garfield and Turner’s chemistry is superlative, combining a slow burning longing with a destructive push and pull that’s just a joy to watch, especially as the house of cards begin to tumble.
04B · The Postman Always Rings Twice
1981 · Bob Rafelson
Flash forward to 1981 where not only is the Hays Code long dead but “New Hollywood” filmmaker Bob Rafelson (Five Easy Pieces) decides to take Cain’s novel and put it in the derisive, cigar scented hands of David Mamet, giving us a VERY different take for what would be his screenwriting debut. This time it’s Jack Nicholson and Jessica Lange pulling the wool over John Colicos’ eyes in this much more raw, violent and aggressively defeatist version where it’s not so much slow-burning passion but angry desperation that proves to be Frank and Cora’s undoing.
Where the original tip-toed, this film stomps through unabated with love scenes (and I use that term loosely) that not only shocked audiences but Lana Turner herself, who called this remake “pornographic trash” (ouch). A much nastier film for sure (again… David Mamet) but still a handsomely crafted and exceptionally atmospheric Hollywood production that helped usher in the “erotic thriller” trend of the 80s; not to mention the fact that the leads are impossible to take your eyes off of. With Nicholson at his most compulsive and Lange at her most beguiling, the anguish they pull each other through is palpably fierce and remains enthralling throughout.
1992 · Robert Zemeckis
Death
Becomes Her
Say what you will about this movie, it’s not every day you get an A-List driven, special-effects laden, multimillion dollar black comic-horror-satire! That might be why, despite the critical drubbing this took back in the day, it continues to be an enduring 90s cult classic.
In what will prove to be Robert Zemeckis’ last foray into broad comedy this delightfully campy yet gruesome unraveling of a friendship/rivalry (rivalry-ship?) showcases Goldie Hawn and Meryl Streep at their malicious best while Bruce Willis gamely plays interference in the most emasculating, shlemiel role of his career. Years after the gregarious Madeline (Streep) stole her husband Ned (Willis), Helen (Hawn), with the help of a mysterious potion, strives to execute the perfect revenge plot to carry out the perfect murder so she and Ned can live the perfect life… forever.
David Koepp’s refreshingly misanthropic script throws obsession with impossible beauty standards, toxic combative social climbing and the futile fight against the clock into a fantastical brew that allows Zemeckis to construct one of the most gleefully nasty studio comedies of that decade. Features a perfectly ostentatious score by Alan Silvestri, groundbreaking effects work by ILM and a trio of performances so shamelessly florid it makes the fountain of youth potion the most believable thing in the picture! Ridiculously entertaining.
1981 · Lawrence Kasdan
Body Heat
My God,
the sweat…
The wind chimes, the velvety John Barry score, the sweat, my GOD the sweat… and of course, Kathleen Turner. There are few actors that arrived the way Turner did in this brilliantly sultry throwback to Double Indemnity; as Matty Walker she redefined the femme-fatale for the 1980s, only to do it again later that same decade with Jessica Rabbit!
William Hurt is terrific as second-rate lawyer and first-rate patsy Ned Racine who concocts a simple arson scheme in order to start over with the ravishing Matty and rid the world of her odious husband Edmund Walker (Richard Crenna) … but did he really concoct it? Ted Danson, J. A. Preston and Mickey Rourke round out a lively supporting cast as Ned’s buddies trying to save him from himself which lays on the screw-turning tension as the swindle inevitably starts to crumble. Danson in particular is excellent as an eccentric, Fred Astaire emulating prosecutor who knows Ned is getting himself in too deep but can’t help but enjoy the vicarious fireworks.
Acclaimed screenwriter and first time director Lawrence Kasdan (The Big Chill, Silverado) leans into the classic noir aura, carefully crafting a relentlessly tactile film that backs up its mood with slick, vivacious dialogue you’ll want to catch every syllable of. An intense, sweltering neo-noir classic if ever there was one, just make sure you have a bowl of ice chips handy.