01 October 2011

Some Like It Hot


One of my favorite sub-genres is film noir. That term usually brings to mind titles out of the past like The Maltese Falcon and Double Indemnity (and Out of the Past), but I like the neo-noirs as well: Blood Simple, The Grifters, L.A. Confidential, etc. And yes, I realize I'm talking about screen fiction rather than our usual page fiction. But I can't help myself. I'm a certified, card-carrying movie maniac.

Balmy and Palmy

One of the best of these newer noirs, I think, is a film called Body Heat. I enjoyed it when I first saw it, years ago, and I've probably watched it half a dozen times since, on cable and tape and DVD. It always makes me long for more novels and stories and movies about conniving women, lovesick men, Chandleresque dialogue, and dark, steamy plots in which the guys always think they're in control but they're not. One of the female lead's more memorable quotes to the male lead in BH was, "You're not too smart, are you? I like that, in a man."

In my opinion, Body Heat had everything: a storyline with twists and turns throughout, unforgettable characters, a surprise ending, smart dialogue, and a sweltering Florida setting (the fictional Miranda Beach, just north of Miami) that made you think This couldn't have happened anywhere else. And the late John Barry's score was one of his best. Most of this soundtrack was different arrangements of the same tune, but it was still outstanding, and the saxophone theme in the opening scene set the mood for the whole film. Barry was one of those masters whose music could make an already good movie (Goldfinger, Somewhere in Time, Dances With Wolves) far better.

Mrs. Walker, You're Trying to Seduce Me

Like many successful films, this one featured no superstars. Before they exchanged body heat, William Hurt and Kathleen Turner weren't familiar to movie audiences -- I think he had two previous film credits and she had none. Anytime I see them now, it's hard not to picture them as Ned Racine and Matty Walker. Racine was a lazy, incompetent lawyer suffering from subtropical depression and Matty was a sexy and mysterious married woman whose temperature, she told him in that throaty voice of hers, always ran a couple of degrees high. I also picture them sweaty. And I'm not talking about just the love scenes. Everybody in Body Heat was sweating, all the time. Even at the office, or in court, or at concerts, or during meetings, or at lunch. (The same kind of thing happened in A Time to Kill. One would think nobody south of the Mason-Dixon had ever heard of air conditioning.)

A piece of trivia: BH supposedly takes place during a Florida heat wave. In reality, it was filmed during one of the coldest winters in the state's history. Constant perspiration was supplied by crew members in warm coats and gloves who hurried around with spritz bottles and sprayed water onto the already shivering, sometimes barely-dressed actors. Turner once mentioned in an interview that she often crunched and held ice cubes in her mouth until just before she had to say her lines, so her breath wouldn't make clouds in the freezing air when she spoke.

Aides and Abettors

This was also one of those movies where even the supporting cast does a great job. Mickey Rourke had a punky, street-smart role that seemed to have been written especially for him; Ted Danson was surprisingly good as Hurt's tapdancing fellow lawyer, and had some of the best lines; reluctant cop J.A. Preston reminded us that at least one person in this story knew right from wrong; and Richard Crenna, best known to audiences back then as farmer Luke McCoy, was somehow believable as the rich and obnoxious (and doomed) husband of the femme fatale. By the way, one of the incriminating clues -- the fact that a pair of eyeglasses the murder victim always wore were missing from the scene of the crime -- was so clever I wound up using it myself years later, in a short mystery I sold to Woman's World. And one of the things I remember most about the film was the delicious buildup of tension in the ten minutes or so before the final action scene, which -- believe me -- ended with a BANG.

More trivia: I've heard that one of the producers -- Alan Ladd, Jr., I think -- demanded that director Lawrence Kasdan have William Hurt shave off his mustache before filming began. Ladd thought it made him look "too sleazy." Kasdan refused, and the mustache stayed put. Sleazy was exactly the look he wanted.

Is It Hot in Here, or Is It Just Me?

It's often been said that Body Heat was a remake of 1944's Double Indemnity. Maybe it was. I liked DI a lot too -- but I think BH is actually a better movie. If you enjoy crime/mystery/suspense (and I assume you do, if you're reading this blog), here's a piece of Miami advice: buy or rent Body Heat. And if you've seen it I'd like to hear your opinion.

There's one more thing I always remember anytime I think of this movie. Back in the mid-80s I made a practice of taping uncut and commercial-free movies off Showtime and Cinemax, to watch later. Since my dad, who passed away years ago, loved westerns, and since he and my mother lived too far out in the country to get cable back then, I got into the habit of occasionally taking him a six-hour videocassette of (on the same tape) two or three movies with John Wayne, Clint Eastwood, etc. Well, one day I left him a tape that contained, I think, High Noon first, Rio Bravo next, and (although I'd forgotten it was on there) the uncensored version of Body Heat. I later realized what I'd done, and even though I figured that BH would be way too risque for him or Mom, I also figured that if he found it on the tape he'd see right away that it wasn't a horse opera and wouldn't bother to watch it at all. As things turned out, a couple weeks later I was on the phone with my mother, and asked her if Dad had liked the movies on that latest tape I'd given him. She said, "He must have. I think he watched that third one five times."

Way to go, Pop.



7 comments:

  1. I agree Body Heat is a better film and story than Double Indemnity.

    I'm often immune (or inured) to celluloid actresses (Sharon Stone left me stone cold), but Kathleen Turner sizzled. Her magic even worked in Steve Martin's The Man with Two Brains.

    John Barry is an outstanding composer, one of my favorites along with Philip Glass and a couple of others. Body Heat is good but my favorite is The Ipcress File. You can hear thematic similarities between the two.

    I remember that winter and it was unnaturally cold. In 30 years, I've twice seen snow in Florida… just flakes, but it was real snow.

    I'm not sure if my parents saw Body Heat or not, but they would have loved it.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Ah, noir! I just picked up Brian de Palma's Femme Fatale. (No relation to Deborah.)

    ReplyDelete
  3. I loved this column, but I am also a movie buff. Your comment about your dad made me laugh out loud (worthy of being spelled out this time!) When my son was 18, someone mentioned something about sex and he paled. "You mean?" he asked, "you and dad still have sex?" LOL ... and yes, we still like steamy movies with lots of mystery.

    ReplyDelete
  4. John, you sure made me want to watch the movie--even though I find conniving femmes fatales kind of tedious. Speaking of Jackson, MS, I'm going to see The Help tonight. Loved the book, praying the movie hasn't ruined it. Did y'all read it, you Chandler-loving guys?

    ReplyDelete
  5. Liz, you MUST watch that movie. This femme fatale isn't tedious at all. She is, as Leigh said, sizzling. And I was crazy about the music.

    Yep, I read The Help earlier this year, and I loved it. Haven't yet seen the film version. I'll expect a full report . . .

    Deborah, what would we do without movies??

    ReplyDelete
  6. What would we do without movies???
    Why, we’d all finally get the chance to compete in the Underwater Badminton World Cup Challenge, of course!
    Wait…you mean there isn’t really such a tournament? Darn! Better go out and rent Body Heat on DVD, before everybody else gets there and I wind up at the end of the waiting list.

    On a slightly different note: Did you see the 2010 version of The Killer Inside Me? I thought they did a fairly good job, but now I’m trying to find the 1976 version with (I think) Stacy Keach. Have you seen either one, John? And, if so, what did you think of them? I’d be interested in your take on them—even if it’s in a future post.

    ReplyDelete
  7. No--I hate to admit it, but I haven't seen either version of The Killer Inside Me. But I can assure you they'll soon be in my Netflix queue. (There's probably a killer inside all of us, since we like mysteries.)

    ReplyDelete

Welcome. Please feel free to comment.

Our corporate secretary is notoriously lax when it comes to comments trapped in the spam folder. It may take Velma a few days to notice, usually after digging in a bottom drawer for a packet of seamed hose, a .38, her flask, or a cigarette.

She’s also sarcastically flip-lipped, but where else can a P.I. find a gal who can wield a candlestick phone, a typewriter, and a gat all at the same time? So bear with us, we value your comment. Once she finishes her Fatima Long Gold.

You can format HTML codes of <b>bold</b>, <i>italics</i>, and links: <a href="https://about.me/SleuthSayers">SleuthSayers</a>