Body Heat (1981) Irresistible Impulse

[cigar joe]

Director: Lawrence Kasdan, Writer: Lawrence Kasdan, Stars: William Hurt, Kathleen Turner and Richard Crenna. Ned Racine (Hurt) is a seedy small town lawyer in Florida. During a searing heatwave he's picked up by married Matty Walker (Turner). A passionate affair commences but it isn't long before they realise the only thing standing in their way is Matty's rich husband Edmund (Crenna).

[drinkanddestroy]

a must-see.

as my buddy who's a Property Law Professor is fond of saying, "This is the greatest movie ever about the Rule Against Perpetuities." (They actually get the rule wrong in the movie, but who cares).

[T.H.]

How do you like Body Heat and not love Double Indemnity? Body Heat imo is just a useless remake of DI that completely ignored the importance of Edward G. Robinson's character, who was at the moral center of the story.

[drinkanddestroy]

How do you like Body Heat and not love Double Indemnity? Body Heat imo is just a useless remake of DI that completely ignored the importance of Edward G. Robinson's character, who was at the moral center of the story.

Firstly, for whatever it's worth,  I should point out that i saw BH before I saw DI. (Once I saw DI, I realized BH was a total re-make of it).

My problem with with DI stems mainly from the narration: there is zero suspense. You know exactly what happens all along.  True, the Robinson character plays a much smaller role in BH (where it is split into two characters: the DA and the cop), while he is essential to DI. But I have a hard time with movies that provide  no suspense. When I watched BH, I had hardly ever seen any noirs and wasn't familiar with the classic "femme fatale" role, so I was really surprised at the various turns of events. (Ignorance is bliss  ... and btw, I actually loved BH on my second viewing, did not like it that much on the first. As Roger Ebert said, when you watch it the first time, you are watching through Ned's eyes; on the re-watch, you are watching through Matty's eyes).

I had the same problem with Sunset Blvd., how you know what happens from the opening scene, though that did not ruin the movie for me -- I still absolutely love SB. But for some reason DI was ruined for me; there was no suspense whatsoever. I know, I know. Movies are about more than the plot and suspense. the noir elements, the lighting, etc. etc. etc. I get that. But I still didn't love the film. Certainly far from terrible, but I felt it wasn't done properly.

This is one case where I feel the re-make (ie. BH) was really terrific, in that it kept the great elements while eliminating the bad ones.

With that said, I should add that I can understand that if someone first saw and loved DI, he may not really enjoy watching BH. Cuz many of the important elements of DI are not in BH (such as, as you mentioned, the Robinson character). So in some ways, perhaps your decision on the BH vs. DI debate may be influenced by which one you saw first.

[T.H.]

It's hard for me to respond because the story of how the characters reached their fate isn't any more or less interesting than a more traditional approach imo.

[drinkanddestroy]

I don't understand how the development of the plots and the suspense of "what happens" is not a vital element of the movie-watching experience, but I guess everyone is different.

When i watch a movie, i do not like knowing ANYTHING WHATSOEVER about plot elements. eg. i never ever read even a review or blurb or description of a movie before watching it, cuz any review or plot synopsis or description you read of a movie gives away the first half of it (at least). And for me, watching plot elements unfold is a vital part of the experience (along with many other factors, of course).

I am not saying that it is NEVER good for a movie to give away the ending and have the story in flashbacks. There are times where it is appropriate and times where it's not. Basically, if the ending is not a major part of the movie, then rather than set the viewer up for a ending which is not a major part anyway, they give it away, thus in effect informing you, "enjoy the other elements of the movie as the unfold, cuz the ending isn't important." eg. in Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, we all know that Pat kills Billy and later gets killed himself. so that part is gotten rid of initially, so that we focus on just watching the movie for everything else, rather than what happens at the end. Also with Titanic: you know the ship is not gonna make it. So flashbacks are appropriate. There are numerous other examples

But for a movie where the ending would IMO be an additional interesting element, you lose that elemnt by giving it all away in the beginning. Sunset Blvd.-- as great as the movie was -- was IMO hurt by that. cuz the ending was not a foregone conclusion, so why lose that element of the movie? with BH, the movie really turns on the various plot elements (assuming u haven't seen DI, in which case nothing that happens in BH is a surprise). and seeing the story unfold, how Matty planned this deception and using Ned like that, is great. in DI, the entire story is mapped out. so u definitely enjoy the Robinson parts; he is always spectacular. But you never really wonder "what's gonna happen" -- cuz he told you in the first scene. So all you are lft with is enjoying the visuals, the acting, the dialogue, the interactions  MacMurray has with Stanwyck and Robinson, etc. Sure, that stuff ain't nothing to sneeze at. But it missed out on that extra element

[moviesceleton]

I don't understand how the development of the plots and the suspense of "what happens" is not a vital element of the movie-watching experience, but I guess everyone is different.

When i watch a movie, i do not like knowing ANYTHING WHATSOEVER about plot elements. eg. i never ever read even a review or blurb or description of a movie before watching it, cuz any review or plot synopsis or description you read of a movie gives away the first half of it (at least). And for me, watching plot elements unfold is a vital part of the experience (along with many other factors, of course).

I am not saying that it is NEVER good for a movie to give away the ending and thus be viewed i flashbacks. There are times where it is appropriate and times where it's not. Basically, if the ending is not a major part of the movie, then rather than set the viewer up for a ending which is not a major part anyway, they give it away, thus in effect informing you, "enjoy the other elements of the movie as the unfold, cuz the ending isn't important." eg. in Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, we all know that Pat kills Billy and later gets killed himself. so that part is gotten rid of initially, so that we focus on just watching the movie for everything else, rather than what happens at the end. Also with Titanic: you know the ship is not gonna make it. So flashbacks are appropriate. There are numerous other examples

But for a movie where the ending would IMO be an additional interesting element, you lose that elemnt by giving it all away in the beginning. Sunset Blvd.-- as great as the movie was -- was IMO hurt by that. cuz the ending was not a foregone conclusion, so why lose that element of the movie? with BH, the movie really turns on the various plot elements (assuming u haven't seen DI, in which case nothing that happens in BH is a surprise). and seeing the story unfold, how Matty planned this deception and using Ned like that, is great. in DI, the entire story is mapped out. so u definitely enjoy the Robinson parts; he is always spectacular. But you never really wonder "what's gonna happen" -- cuz he told you in the first scene. So all you are lft with is enjoying the visuals, the acting, the dialogue, the interactions  MacMurray has with Stanwyck and Robinson, etc. Sure, that stuff ain't nothing to sneeze at. But it missed out on that extra element

I think we discussed something relating to this a while ago: Voiceovers by dead people. DJ pointed out that the audience would feel totally mislead if it turned out in the last minutes of a movie that the narrator dies. But if his fate is revealed in the very beginning, we forgive it. This is the case in both Double Indemnity and Sunset Blvd. So that kind of explains why the ending is revealed in the beginning. But of course, if you don't like the way the story is told, this fact doesn't make it any better. Personally I adore both films.

[drinkanddestroy]

I think we discussed something relating to this a while ago: Voiceovers by dead people. DJ pointed out that the audience would feel totally mislead if it turned out in the last minutes of a movie that the narrator dies. But if his fate is revealed in the very beginning, we forgive it. This is the case in both Double Indemnity and Sunset Blvd. So that kind of explains why the ending is revealed in the beginning. But of course, if you don't like the way the story is told, this fact doesn't make it any better. Personally I adore both films.

yeah, we had this discussion in the RTLMYS thread; here it is http://www.fistful-of-leone.com/forums/index.php?topic=7645.msg151195#msg151195


 In SB, You could have had the flashbacks as his dying thoughts or something like that (as in Carlito's Way). Or instead, shown the opening scene with all the cops standing around the pool, but without showing Holden's body. something like that. And in DI, he is not dead, so that reasoning doesn't apply anyway. I LOVED Sunset Blvd., just pointing out one problem I had with it. (I still rated it a 9.4/10 in the RTLMYS thread); I didn't love DI as much; I think BH was wonderful in taking DI's great potential and fixing up what I viewed as its problems.

Again, I should emphasize: I saw BH before DI, that may have s/t to do with it. Also, I understand DI was very, very innovative in its time; seeing it recently for the first time, it's hard to appreciate how groundbreaking it was back then. I understand all that. Still, not saying DI was a bad film; but I didn't enjoy it nearly as much as some of y'all did. If I had to rate 'em (I'd rate DI somewhere in the high 7's, and BH in the mid-9's.

[cigar joe]

Re-watched Body Heat today,  its a great reworking of DI, I'm really surprised that no "based" on or "inspired"  by credit to Cain is anywhere to be found. Lawrence Kasdan gets sole  credit.  It does take the basic story where it couldn't go during the Hays Code. 10/10

[drinkanddestroy]

Having seen DI a bunch of times since I criticized it in this post for giving away what happens, I have to retract those statements now. (I probably said this somewhere else but I wanna say it again in this post, where my DI-bashing occurred.): DI is now one of my all-time very favorite movies. (Maybe the "giving away the ending" thing doesn't bother me after the first viewing cuz by that time, since I'd already seen it, I know the ending anyway, so the "what happens" isn't an issue so much.) Anyway, bottom line is that for me, BH is a great movie, a 10/10, but DI is even better: in that upper echelon of Great - among the 10/10's, there are a few of the very, very greatest movies of all-time, like it's one of my 10 or 15 favorite movies ever.
Sometimes murder can smell like honeysuckle .....

[cigar joe]

Having seen DI a bunch of times since I criticized it in this post for giving away what happens, I have to retract those statements now. (I probably said this somewhere else but I wanna say it again in this post, where my DI-bashing occurred.): DI is now one of my all-time very favorite movies. (Maybe the "giving away the ending" thing doesn't bother me after the first viewing cuz by that time, since I'd already seen it, I know the ending anyway, so the "what happens" isn't an issue so much.) Anyway, bottom line is that for me, BH is a great movie, a 10/10, but DI is even better: in that upper echelon of Great - among the 10/10's, there are a few of the very, very greatest movies of all-time, like it's one of my 10 or 15 favorite movies ever.
Sometimes murder can smell like honeysuckle .....

Agree, I like both very much also.  But I'll go farther, of the so called Neo Noir's Body Heat is one of the best side by side with The Last Seduction and Blue Velvet in depiction of the ultimate Femme Fatale.

[cigar joe]

Jazz. Smoke. The slow lazy roiling of a decaying fire. Bodies writhe in silhouettes.



Directed by Lawrence Kasdan, written by Lawrence Kasdan and stars William Hurt as Ned Racine, Kathleen Turner as Matty Walker,  Richard Crenna as Edmund Walker, Ted Danson as Peter Lowenstein,  J.A. Preston as Oscar Grace, Mickey Rourke as Teddy Lewis, Larry Marko as Judge Costanza, Kim Zimmer as Mary Ann. The jazzy/bluesy score is by John Barry, the stylistic cinematography by Richard H. Kline (The Boston Strangler (1968)) .


Ned Racine low rent playboy


Ned (Hurt),  Peter (Danson),  Judge Costanza (Marko)

An Anachronistic Noir. A Southern Noir. Once upon a time Lawrence Kasdan created a noir-ish world of one part James M. Cain's Double Indemnity and The Postman Always Rings Twice, one part, the tropical pulp of John D. MacDonald with a dash of Raymond Chandler. Shake in a cocktail mixer and pour over rotting ice. It's a 50's atmosphere that doesn't know that 30 years has passed. It's hazy, foggy, smokey. Body Heat exists in it's own world, a world where certain modernities have gotten stuck in time. More artifacts, as the years pass seem to be added, amusingly so. But yet the film remains timeless.



The Florida Treasure Coast. Miranda Beach (Lake Worth) and Pinehaven (Manalapan), straddling the Inter Coastal. The towns are stuck in a monumental heat wave. It's Hot. It's Humid. It's Sweaty. It's Sultry. Air conditioners seem scarce, like back in the Fifties only theaters, bars, and diners seem to have them, and feeble ones at that. Or it seems as if  our strange noir landscape is plagued by an eternal brown out. Fans are the cooling technology in vogue. They are everywhere. A certain whirling madness is just hanging there.


from left Pete Lowenstein (Danson) and Ned Racine (Hurt)

Our yarn is about a bottom feeder. Lowest of the low. A lawyer, what else. Attorney at Law, Ned Racine (Hurt). Ned gets by comfortably on the misfortunes of his clients. He lives high enough on the hog to have an office and a receptionist. He's treading water. Winning a few losing a few. He's not the sharpest tool in the lawyer shed but hey, he's arrogant. He's reached his level and is living at it. He's smug, a little bit slimey a bit of a shyster. He is cynical. Ned seldom smiles. He smokes. A cigarette coolly dangles from his lip. He sports a porn star mustache. Drinks Bourbon on the rocks. Drives a 1964 Chevrolet Corvette. Pussy magnet. A low rent playboy. Nails all the squab in town. Law clerks, secretaries, nurses, waitresses. Doesn't discriminate. Doesn't commit. You know the type. Get's more ass than a toilet seat.


Ned on the prowl casting eyeball for tail

Cool listless jazz. Hot breeze. Dark Night. Ned prowling the boardwalk. He's casting eyeball for tail. Outdoor concert crowd. Programs fanning. Matty (Turner) is a higher class babe. She is alluring. She has money. She arises from the audience transcendent. Venus from the half shell. She is unmistakably the film's center. Her clothes cling in the sea breeze. She's gorgeous. She's sultry. She is sexually intoxicating. She is desirable. She knows it. She is way out of Ned's class. The 100 proof Femme Fatale.


Matty's entrance


the male gaze


the sea  breeze caresses her tresses

Matty glides past an awestruck Ned to pause at boardwalk rail. She strikes a come hither pose. The sea breeze caresses her tresses. She dangles the bait. She's a feline in heat. Her motor runs hot. Ned is lured. Ned can't help it. Its an irresistible impulse. He stands by her. He's nonchalant. He plays his best game.


I'm a married woman

Matty and Ned converse as adults without the old Hayes Code, "coded words" to get around the obvious, conventions of Classic Noir. There's no cute allusions to racing horses, or of how fast your going over the sexual speed limit. It's sharp direct, naturalistic dialog that is mature, clever, and refreshing.

Ned:You can stand here with me if you want but you'll have to agree not to talk about the heat.
Matty: I'm a married woman.
Ned: Meaning what?
Matty: Meaning I'm not looking for company.
Ned: Then you should have said I'm a happily married woman.

Matty drifts along the boardwalk. Ned shadows.



Matty: You aren't too smart, are you? I like that in a man.
Ned: What else do you like? Lazy? Ugly? Horny? I got 'em all.
Matty: You don't look lazy.



After buying her an ice...

Ned: I need someone to take care of me, someone to rub my tired muscles, smooth out my sheets.
Matty: Get married.
Ned: I just need it for tonight.

Matty does a spit take getting a stain on her blouse.

Matty: Would you get me a paper towel or something? Dip it in some cold water.
Ned: Right away. I'll even wipe if off for you.
Matty: You don't want to lick it?

Ned comes back. Matty's ankled. Split. But mission accomplished. Ned got a taste. Ned is hooked. Ned is obsessed. Ned will be her patsy. He spends a week of searching before she lets him find her again.

Body Heat was Turner's first film. She plays her part with a confidence way beyond her 27 years as if she has been 27 for a thousand years. She is every woman that ever lived, a sensual, ageless, eternal female. Her voice is husky, smoky, silky, enchanting. She is the embodiment of every Femme Fatale that ever used sex to get what she desired rolled into one. She knows exactly what buttons to push.

Matty reeling Ned in.



Ned "finds" Matty at the Pinehaven Tavern. Ned's libio is in overdrive. Matty leaves. Ned follows. Corvette tailing Mercedes.

At the big house. Matty teases Ned.  She gives green light/red light signals. She tells him to leave. Ned is pissed. She locks him out. He prowls about like big cat. She stares. She smoulders. He breaks in. She ignites.

continued....

[cigar joe]

continuing...

Sizzlin'













Matty arouses a lust in Ned that is practically insatiable. This longing is a powerful drug that addicts Ned to her varied charms. Like a junkie Ned will do whatever it takes to keep mainlining on Mattie.

Hurt is excellent in this, he plays, very convincingly, the over sexed dope who is literally screwed stupid, and completely out maneuvered by a much more conniving manipulator who has had years to adjust her twisted moves.  Matty hangs back and gives Ned just enough reins to let him think he's coming up with the ruthless plan to kill her husband.

Lust





Matty turns up the heat. Ignition. She wants out. She wants MONEY. A prenup screws her out of it. Hubby must die. Ned must do it. Ned complies. Ned plans. Edmund owns the Breakers. A beachfront property. The place is abandoned. A fire bug magnet. Make it look like arson. Make Edmund the torcher. Make it looked botched.





It went well.  An inferno. Edmund a crispy critter. Everything's copacetic. Days pass. Edmund pushing up daisies. Ned nailing Matty. Openly, with regularity. But something's WRONG. There's a call from a lawyer. There's a new will. Ned drew it up. Witnessed by Mary Ann. WTF. Ned didn't draw it up. It's a mess. Ned looks bad. The will is null and void. Matty gets it ALL. GREED.

But there's more. A tip. Police are stirred. Hornets nest. Edmunds glasses. Where are they? They should have been seared into what was left of his face. Arrows point to Ned.

 It's going bad. It's going NOIRSVILLE.

 NOIRSVILLE




 










The supporting actors in the film are very believable. Mickey Rourke is a professional arsonist who in a great sequence tries to give his lawyer some good but unheeded advice. Richard Crenna is Matty's husband he's an unscrupulous businessman. Ted Danson is Peter, a D.A., a good buddy of Ned's whose quirk is a penchant for Fred Astaire dance routines. There is another excellent night scene where Danson briefs Ned on the case building against him. J.A. Preston is great as Oscar the cop, another good friend of Ned, who reluctantly must go after him and then later listens sympathetically as Ned tries to explain.

A curio of the film is the depiction of our dwindling tribe of Tobacco Smokers. Practically everybody smokes, it's emphasized. Is tobacco a drug that balances euphoria with anxiousness. Was it a gateway drug for promoting an artificially induced culture that prevailed everywhere?  Is it an ancient sacred sacrament of the Americas, exploited and degraded from ritual to banality? These thoughts run through my mind.Think about it.

“Here’s what film noir is to me. It’s a righteous, generically American film movement that went from 1945 to 1958 and exposited one great theme and that theme is you’re fucked, You have just met a woman, you’re inches away from the greatest sex of your life but within six weeks of meeting the woman you will be framed for a crime you did not commit and you’ll end up in the gas chamber and as they strap you in and you’re about to breath the cyanide fumes you’ll be grateful for the few weeks you had with her and grateful for your own death.”

-James Ellroy
Novelist, L.A. Confidential

In my opinion, Body Heat is the Noir where, Double Indemnity and The Postman Always Rings Twice wished they could have gone if they had been untethered from the Hayes Code. Not for prudes, not for everyone. An adult noir done artistically, easily a 10/10

[drinkanddestroy]

In my opinion, Body Heat is the Noir where, Double Indemnity and The Postman Always Rings Twice wished they could have gone if they had been untethered from the Hayes Code. Not for prudes, not for everyone. An adult noir done artistically, easily a 10/10

I definitely agree on that point.

I still prefer Double Indemnity, but Body Heat is a great movie; for once I agree with your rating  

We have a thread already for Body Heat http://www.fistful-of-leone.com/forums/index.php?topic=10990.0

can you merge the two of 'em? Thanks

[dave jenkins]

When i watch a movie, i do not like knowing ANYTHING WHATSOEVER about plot elements. eg. i never ever read even a review or blurb or description of a movie before watching it, cuz any review or plot synopsis or description you read of a movie gives away the first half of it (at least). And for me, watching plot elements unfold is a vital part of the experience (along with many other factors, of course).

You are an alien from another planet. Please get back on your flying saucer and go home.