Body Double

My all-time favorite 2.5-star movie, Body Double, is a ridiculous "sexy thriller" from Hollywood's horniest auteur, Brian De Palma. The film is not camp, nor is it "so bad it's good" or something dismissable like that. This is a genuinely entertaining work of high-class sleaze-corn that doesn't work even a little bit as a mystery narrative, yet its surface-level delights never fail to draw me in. Of course, Body Double was a compelling watch when I was a young teen with its voyeuristic premise and promise of steamy encounters, but I'm constantly surprised at how much I've enjoyed it on multiple rewatches over the decades even though I know how completely hollow and absurd it ultimately ends up.

Most mystery thrillers rely on a coincidence or two, but Body Double's ludicrous plot requires so many acts of narrative serendipity and divine providence that only De Palma devotees brainwashed by the auteur theory can make a case for the film as a consequential exploration of... anything. But that doesn't mean this isn't a pretty terrific ride. In fact, it's every bit as effective as the director's far more acclaimed thriller, Blow Out. Both movies are more about filmmaking than storytelling, even down to their protagonists, who both work in low-budget films; both require spectacular amounts of suspension of disbelief to take seriously, and both are shamelessly derivative of other movies yet possess a style so distinctive they almost convince you of their originality. It's just that Blow Out features a career-best performance from John Travolta and a winning turn from Nancy Allen, whereas the acting in Body Double is so second-rate across the board that it makes the picture feel inferior. However, the subpar performances in Body Double are part of its charm, and the absence of movie stars lends it a weird backhanded credibility.

From its most basic conception to just about every aspect of the execution, Body Double is hard to take seriously. The movie seems to have sprung from De Palma's desire to rip off two iconic movies this time out instead of his usual single-picture inspiration. Returning once again to his favorite filmmaker, Alfred Hitchcock, the writer/director seems to have hit upon the idea of updating Vertigo, as he had before with his earlier, more direct "homage" Obsession in 1976, but this time combining it with another Hitch classic, Rear Window. Describing what De Palma does as "building on Hitchcock" is like saying Vanilla Ice's "Ice Ice, Baby" built on what David Bowie and Queen created. De Palma takes the set-up, main character traits, narrative beats, visual use of a city, and major plot twists from two preexisting movies and repurposes them to explore his own stylistic and thematic preoccupations. This brazen type of appropriation is far less creative than the smorgasbord-style sampling from dozens of eclectic sources and influences that his contemporary George Lucus and his acolyte Quinton Tarantino engage in.

Body Double has a fun premise, and De Palma, not in the least perturbed about logic flaws, relishes every aspect of the worlds his characters and his camera inhabit. Craig Wasson (who?) stars as Jake Skully, a struggling actor who loses his girlfriend, his apartment, and his job as the star of a low-budget vampire movie. He also suffers from a debilitating case of claustrophobia, which renders him powerless in key situations. Through the opportune meeting of a fellow working actor played by Gregg Henry (who?), Skully finds himself house-sitting in a swanky, ultra-modern home with an incredible view of the Hollywood Hills. The place comes complete with a telescope trained on a neighboring home where a beautiful woman does a sexy striptease every night like clockwork. On the third night of watching this woman dance, drink, undress, and put her jewelry away in a safe, Skully also witnesses a man threaten and eventually kill her with an overtly phallic giant power drill (one that doesn't always cooperate due to its own power limitations). After being belittled and made to feel like the perve he is by the homicide detective investigating the case played by Guy Boyd (Between the Lines, Streamers, Jagged Edge), Skully realizes he may have been set up. After putting a few clues together, he embarks on a quest into the world of adult filmmaking to see if the woman he saw murdered was indeed the same one who seduced him with her nightly erotic dancing.

Given this director's predilections, we might think the movie wouldn't get really exciting until it takes its turn into the seedyness of the porn world, but that's not the case. Like many De Palma movies, the first act is the most riveting. Los Angeles is a major character in Body Double. The use of the modernist home, the Chemosphere, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright protege John Lautner, exemplifies De Palma's ingenuity. This space-aged, octagonal home, accessible by steep steps and an automated funicular, is such an unreal-seeming abode that it helps the contrivances of the narrative that unfold around it seem more credible. The sequence in which Skully follows his sexy neighbor, Gloria Revelle, played by Deborah Shelton (who?), around a shopping mall and then to a seaside motel is an example of the best kind of excessive geographical exploration this director indulges in. De Palma famously loves to "shoot every fucking inch" of a set or location, often resulting in tediously ostentatious long takes that distract from the narrative and draw focus to the filmmaking. But in the case of Skully trailing Gloria, the sequences in the mall and by the beach captivate despite how little actually happens in them. In much the same way Hitchcock and editor George Tomasini made Jimmy Stewart following Kim Novak around San Fransico feel far more dreamlike than the actual dream that gets illustrated in Vertigo, De Palma and editors Gerald B. Greenberg and Bill Pankow make two characters walking around the outskirts of LA feel exciting, funny, and mysterious. It's difficult to recall how much screen time these mostly wordless scenes actually take up as we're lulled into an ethereal daze right up until the point where Skully and Gloria kiss passionately as the camera swirls and swirls and swirls around them—breaking the spell we were unaware we'd been put under by attempting to cast a more overt and clumsy spell.

Skully's adventures in the world of adult filmmaking provide the movie with most of its humor. It's in these scenes that De Palma clearly has the most fun, not only by sneaking porno elements into a mainstream movie but by casting Melanie Griffith, the daughter of one of Hitchcock's iconic icy blonde leading ladies, Tippi Hedren (The Birds, Marnie) as the titular Holly Body. Griffith really pulled off a feat with this role, legitimizing herself as a serious actor by playing a part most actresses of the time might have considered career suicide. When we finally get the long-promised glimpse behind the scenes of the adult film world, De Palma sidesteps expectations by not showing anything particularly raunchy and instead dropping us into a quasi-music-video featuring sexual imagery no more racey than we would see on MTV in the middle of the afternoon. Not all of Body Double's surreal shifts between the real world, dream world, and the world of filmmaking are effective, but when we suddenly find ourselves in a Frankie Goes to Hollywood production, I can't help but admire De Palma's sheer audacity and ability to surprise. Griffith, coming into the movie reasonably late, is able to establish a fully realized character, that is until Holly—and everything else about the movie—falls apart in the comically inept final act. Kudos to composer Pino Donaggio for creating a score so perfectly tailored to this picture that it positively enhances both the sublime and the ridiculous aspects of the proceedings.