Body Double [VHS]
by Brian De Palma
![Body Double [VHS]](/images/Body-Double-VHS-6303589162-L.jpg)
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VHS Tape Cover Information
Actor: Craig Wasson, Deborah Shelton, Gregg Henry, Guy Boyd, Melanie GriffithDirector: Brian De Palma
Cinematographer: Stephen H. Burum
Producer: Brian De Palma
Writer: Brian De Palma
Editor: Bill Pankow
Editor: Gerald B. Greenberg
Producer: Howard Gottfried
Writer: Robert J. Avrech
Edition: VHS Tape
Audio: English (Original Language), Analog
Format: Color, NTSC
Running Time: 114 minutes
Release Date: 1995-05-15
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Publisher: Sony Pictures
Studio: Sony Pictures
VHS Movie Reviews of Body Double [VHS]
Movie Review: If you're going to rip-off an artiste... may as well be a master
Summary: 4 Stars
Brian DePalma knows a good film when he sees one. He has made several excellent films (The Untouchables) and some films that are cultural landmarks (Carrie, Scarface). His work borrows heavily from other masterworks. Body Double has plot points and several specific shots that trace their roots directly to two of Alfred Hitchcock's best: Rear Window and Vertigo. Body Double mixes these scenes with a leading man who exists in a world far removed from the world of Jimmy Stewart and Grace Kelly.
Craig Wasson stars as Jake Scully, an insecure actor who has the lead in a D-List Vampire movie and a serious phobia of enclosed places, which is established in the opening as poor Jake is paralyzed in his on-set coffin. Like Jimmy Stewart in "Rear Window", Wasson is placed into a position where he views his neighbors through the windows of his apartment. Like Stewart in "Vertigo" he is also positioned to become emotionally attached to a woman who is not who he thinks she is, set up as a witness to a false crime that is meant to disguise a murder. Where Stewart's vertigo paralyzes his character with a fear of heights at key moments in that story, Wasson's claustrophobia does the same here. Body Double shares with Vertigo extended sequences where our hero trails the woman he is becoming entangled with in lengthy scenes with almost no dialogue, as well as a swirling 360 degree camera shot when the hero kisses the woman of mystery.
But De Palma falls somewhat short of the master. Let's just say Wasson is not Jimmy Stewart, Melanie Griffith is not Grace Kelly, etc. While most stories require some degree of suspension of disbelief, DePalma puts in a few unbelievable story elements - some add a cheating "gotcha" and some seem to add no purpose other than to linger in a lurid setting.
Here are a few questions if you choose to see this film:
1. One character spends a significant length of time in disguise. Consider how long it would take to put on that disguise. Then consider the shot of the character without the disguise and the next time you see that character IN disguise. Without an accomplice this character apparently applies a makeup job in a minute that would have taken Rick Baker hours.
2. One of the key plot points involves the hiring of Melanie Griffith's character, one of the top porno actresses, "Holly Body". Holly tells Jake at one point that she gets $2,000 a day. Holly is hired to perform an arousing dance for a private audience for two nights. Why not just hire some stripper? Why hire "the top porno actress in the business"?
Plot holes and sub-par acting keep me from giving a full recommendation, but if you're a film director and you're going to steal from someone, you could do a lot worse than Hitchcock and "Vertigo" and "Rear Window". On the other hand - if you have NOT seen Vertigo or Rear Window, you'd be an idiot to even consider watching this movie first instead.
Summary of Body Double [VHS]
Even Brian De Palma's staunchest defenders had to swallow hard with this gaudily gory bauble of a thriller that is built around a gruesome (yet surprisingly wittily staged) stalking and murder involving a female victim and a killer with a giant power drill. This is De Palma at his most sensational, in a story about a B-movie actor with career problems (Craig Wasson) and a habit as a voyeur. He witnesses the aforementioned murder, then teams up with a porn actress (Melanie Griffith) to try and find the killer. De Palma has a blast going inside the porn film industry, and even films a pseudo rock video with one-hit wonders Frankie Goes to Hollywood. Wasson is an unlikely leading man, bland and pasty, but he's perfect in the role of a decidedly imperfect hero. --Marshall FineDrama VHS Video
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