Film Review: Dressed to Kill (1980)

(source: tmdb.org)

Only few months after the death of Alfred Hitchcock, his legacy not only continued to carry on but the Master of Suspense appeared to have gained a worthy successor in Brian De Palma, director who would often be described as “new Hitchock” by those who critics who liked him and “Hitchock without humour” by those critics who didn’t. Link between Hitchcock and De Palma was also recognised by Hollywood PR machine. De Palma was named as “Master of Macabre” on the poster for Dressed to Kill, a thriller that is often referenced as the most Hitchcockian among all of his films.

In the beginning we are introduced to Kate Miller (played by Angie Dickinson), middle-aged yet attractive New York housewife whose rich erotic fantasies are so different from the banal sex life provided by her husband Mike (played by Fred Weber). She is so unhappy and frustrated that indulges is open flirtation with her psychiatrist Dr. Robert Elliott (played by Michael Caine) who is attracted to her but rejects her due to his ethical standards. Kate afterwards goes to museum where she catches attention of Warren Lockman (played by Ken Baker), a complete stranger who would nevertheless bring her satisfaction through multiple rounds of passionate sex in taxicab and his apartment. Before she is able to return home, Kate gets brutally slashed to death with a razor by mysterious tall woman with blonde wig. The only person who witnessed the attack and saw the killer is Liz Blake (played by Nancy Allen), a high class call girl who soon finds that NYPD Detective Marino (played by Dennis Franz) is sceptical towards her tale. In the meantime, Dr. Elliott begins to fear that the killer might be “Bobbie”, one of his patients deeply disturbed after the failure to obtain sex change surgery. Liz begins to suspect that she is stalked by a killer, but gets an important ally in Peter (played by Keith Gordon), Kate’s teenage son and technical wunderkind who would use all of his talents and various contraptions to track and catch his mother’s killer.

Dressed to Kill performed well at the box-office, but the response among the critics was mixed, with small but very vocal section greeting it with open hostility. The most common argument was in this film being shameless and worthless rip off of Hitchock’s work, most notably Psycho with which Dressed to Kill shares many elements – cross-dressing killer, memorable shower scene and nominal protagonist who gets brutally murdered in the first half of the film. Due to lax censorship standards, De Palma enjoyed much more creative freedom and the use of Hitchcock’s most sexually explicit film (with exception of 1972 Frenzy) as template meant that his variation of Psycho would openly feature what Hitchock could have only implied. That means very graphic depictions of killings with plenty of blood, as well as explicit scenes of sex and relatively large amounts of nudity - which, in case of Angie Dickinson, required body double in the form of Victoria Lynn Johnson (a technique that would later inspire De Palma for the plot of his 1984 thriller Body Double). De Palma was accused of staining the memory of Hitchcock by using it for cheap exploitative trash, with some scenes being equated with softcore pornography. There were also accusation of misogyny and Dressed to Kill promoting violence against women. And we can only imagine what would happen to De Palma if he tried to make this film today, with plot that could interpret as equating transsexuality with mental illness.

While Dressed to Kill was inspired by Hitchcock, it is in essence De Palma’s film, and one of the more personal. Character of Peter was in many ways based on De Palma himself, who had been geek in his teenage years and had been building computers. But even more important inspiration for De Palma was his wife Nancy Allen, whom he had met at the set of his previous triumph Carrie and for whom he specifically he wrote the role of Liz. That character might be a prostitute and De Palma might show her naked in voyeuristic shower scene at the end, but she is also portrayed as streetwise and capable to take care of herself. She is far from unsophisticated bimbo; apart from being clever manipulator and successful detective in her own right she also uses inside information from her Wall Street client to invest in stock market. De Palma also doesn’t shy away from setting his fantasy into the very real world of 1980s New York, where there are dangers more banal and quite different from deranged cross-dressing killers, but where person in need also can at times receive unexpected help from ordinary characters. One such example is Detective Marino, at times unsophisticated and almost cliched blue collar policeman whose heart is ultimately at the right place. This character is played by Dennis Franz in a way very much like the similar character of Detective Sipowicz in NYPD Blue.

But the main ingredient of this film is De Palma’s superb direction. He still maintains his baroque style, employed in long, elaborate scenes that easily maintain suspense, create melodrama or indulge in all kinds of voyeuristic fantasies. De Palma is in this aided by excellent cinematography by Raif D. Bode as well as musical score by Pino Donagghio, which is both original and very erotic while triumphantly echoing Hitchcockian perfection of Bernard Herrmann at the same time. Some would say that De Palma has put too emphasis on style over substance, and the idea to have as much “clever” scenes as possible has needlessly prolonged film with the ending which, although providing great piece of cinema, looks like nothing more than an ultimately cheap attempt to copy shock epilogue of Carrie. But, even with those minor flaws, Dressed to Kill would satisfy both viewers who want stylish homage to Hitchcock and those who want nothing more than stylish guilty pleasure.

RATING: 8/10 (+++)