1984's Body Double is a strange, strange little movie, and surely additionally discombobulating for those who in the years since its release have messed up and accidentally rented it instead of Lawrence Kasdan's Body Heat, also out new in a special edition DVD release this month.



Set in Los Angeles, the story centers around aspirant actor Jake Scully (Craig Wasson, looking like Bill Maher's cousin), who finds his life tumbling down around him when he catches his wife in bed with another man. He crosses paths with another actor, Sam Bouchard (Gregg Henry), who hooks Jake up with a plumb housesitting gig when he has to leave town. Through a telescope (naturally), Jake enjoys its view of a comely neighbor, and follows said woman (Deborah Shelton) around, partially out of his own peeping tom piqued interest and partially to protect her from a second and far creepier man that he spies watching her.

Jake then witnesses what he thinks is the woman's death, and becomes not so much an outright suspect as a "person of interest" to police, in the parlance of the current world. It's after this that he meets porn star Holly Body (Golden Globe Best Supporting Actress nominee Melanie Griffith), and begins to unravel a labyrinthine tangle of erotic deception and criminal plotting.

De Palma has made a career largely on femme fatale flicks, and this is the granddaddy of his canon. Co-written by De Palma with Robert Avrech, the movie makes copious use of dizzyingly overt directorial technique, from Pino Donaggio's score to a variety of interesting framing choices by cinematographer Stephen Burum. The latter is an odd mix. The wide shots, including a mall-set game of cat-and-mouse staged in Beverly Hills, are intricate and involving, but other scenes, like a police interrogation, break down in extreme close-up. Still, the picture looks great for its age, the L.A. locales are a hoot and the end credits are additionally amusing.

What the movie most has going for it are two solid performances from Wasson and Griffith, in probably her second-best work, and some serious downhill momentum. From the latter's entrance, at around the 70-minute mark, onward to its conclusion, Body Double gives off the pungent aroma of the perfect late night video (in some ways it's a shame this movie is on something as shiny and new as a DVD) rental. With half a brain one can guess the coming twists, but there's a delicious flair to the proceedings that make it worthwhile.

Body Double is presented in a regular Amray case, in 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen, with solid English and French 5.1 Dolby digital audio tracks and subtitles additionally available in both of those languages. Its bonus features consist of a quartet of featurettes, all comprised of the same all-new interview material with De Palma, Griffith, Henry, Shelton and Dennis Franz, who in the film-within-the-film plays a director loosely fashioned on De Palma. There are loads of interesting revelations and musings here, from Shelton's encapsulation of the movie ("the sensuality of Body Heat and the sadness of Scenes From a Marriage") to Henry's recounting of the building of his character. While De Palma may stretch the bounds of realistic analysis when he deploys the phrase "Brechtian device," it is fascinating to hear how its inspiration lies at least partially in his meditation on Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo. Body Double is tonally warped and a bit outdated, sure, but it's also an intriguing blend of artfulness and sleaziness, something largely missing in modern cinema. C+ (Movie) B (Disc)