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"Play Misty for Me" (1971) -- The Slasher That Wasn't Really A Slasher

posted 23 days ago by roger1 (3618)
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SPOILERS FOR "PLAY MISTY FOR ME":

The critic for Time magazine in 1971 -- Jay Cocks, I believe he was -- wrote of Clint Eastwood's debut feature as a director, "Play Misty for Me" that Eastwood "has clearly studied Psycho and Diabolique, and learned his lesson passing well."

So two years before Brian DePalma brought us HIS Psycho inspired shocker "Sisters" (complete with a score by the Psycho composer himself, Bernard Herrmann)...Eastwood was on the Hitchcock-copycat case.

It does seem like a lot of beginning auteurs tried their luck first with thrillers, Hitchcock-inspired or Psycho inspired, or both. Francis Coppola : Dementia 13(a pretty woman clad only in her undies is axe murdered in a pond at night); Peter Bogdanovich: Targets(A Charles Whitman-inspired sniper kills victims in a movie with heavy Psycho overtones.) Steven Spielberg: Duel (an attacking empty tanker truck has a Psycho-like theme as it pursues a main victim.)

Eastwood's 1970's thriller is famous now for influencing a much bigger hit in the 80's: Fatal Attraction.

Premise both times: A man has a "one night stand"(option for more) with a sexy woman who turns out to be obsessed with him, unwilling to break with him, possessing him, stalking him.

The 1987 Fatal Attraction played a stronger OpEd game: The man (Michael Douglas) who had the one night stand was MARRIED, with child...so things were more ugly and hurtful in the playout. And wives everywhere could warn their husbands "Don't you go be like Michael Douglas" and Time Magazine could have a cover story and the "obsessed woman" (Glenn Close) could be championed by single women everywhere as a poorly designed "villain martyr." Etc.

Clint's version played it more safe. He was single, not married. He had no children. It WAS established that he HAD had a monogamous girlfriend relationship, but was conveniently "on break up" when he had his near-fatal one-night stand (with Jessica Walter.) Eastwood's character -- however monogamous at one time -- was quite the ladies man and pick-up artist much of the time anyway. A sneaky bit of business -- Clint was being sly here. A "faithful" stud.

Anyway, in Play Misty for Me, not only does Eastwood try -- at first subtly, later directly -- to get rid of his annoying obsessive (Walter) he ALSO gets back together with his ex-(Donna Mills), thus putting them both in harm's way.

I was thinking about Play Misty the other day in comparison TO the later "slashers" that would come in the 70's and 80s, in which the plot WAS the slasher murders (once some basics had been established about Michael Myers, Mrs. Voorhees, Jason and their many clones to follow.)

Play Misty for Me had a PLOT. The insane lover scorned.

Along the way, Jessica Walter's clearly crazy woman got worse (ruined Clint's DJ promotion interview by yelling at the older female interviewer as a Clint's new girlfriend --"what this old bag?") and worse(attempted suicide with razor blades, drawing real blood) and WORSE.

And this is where Play Misty for Me gets interesting. We KNOW that for this movie to truly become a thriller, Jessica Walter has got to KILL somebody.

But in her first crazed knife attack on an innocent character -- the victim doesn't die.

This made for a more realistic and in some ways disturbing "pre-slasher movie" attack, Jessica Walter attacks Clint Eastwood's wise-cracking, Thelma Ritter-in-Rear Window like cleaning woman, who is also a middle aged African American. And instead of stabbing the woman to death, Walter HACKS at her with a big bladed knife, machete-style, and therefore never delivering a fatal stab. The cleaning lady goes off to the hospital , Jesscia Walter goes off to a mental institution.

"Psycho" screenwriter Joe Stefano once said that to the victims of the Psycho knife attacks -- or ANY knife attacks -- the fear of DISFIGUREMENT might focus in their minds as a fate worse than death. Imagine if Arbogast had somehow, after being slashed down the face, knocked Mrs. B down the stairs to her death and survived himself. He'd go through life as "scarface." But alive. At least the cleaning woman in "Play Misty for Me" wasn't hacked in the face.

With Jessica in the mental institution, Clint re-ups for monogamy with his ex, and romantic interludes ensue. Critics nailed first-time director Clint for letting two romantic sessions go on for too long: some lovemaking scored to the hit song "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face" by Roberta Flack(the ENTIRE LONG SONG plays as the lovemaking and cutsie-making goes on and on and on) and a hip sidetrip to the Monterey Jazz Festival that makes sure to grab all footage possible.

But they let Jessica Walter out of the institution(after all, she only WOUNDED her victim), and she begins a third act rampage of revenge, eventually holding Donna Mills hostage at her ocean cliff house.

Somebody has to die to turn this into a REAL thriller.

CONT

[–] roger1 (3618) 23 days ago

Enter John Larch, a big rather lumbering actor pal of Eastwood's who played a lot of bad guys in his time, but in 1971 got to play good guy cops twice for Eastwood -- second (December) as the uniformed police chief in "Dirty Harry", but FIRST (October) in Play Misty as a plain clothes police detective(well, actually, police SERGEANT) named Sgt McCallum.

McCallum doesn't get much character development. He urges jazz DJ Eastwood to "play more Mantovanin" easy listening. You figure that McCallum did tougher duty in a city somewhere and settled down to finish out his career in the beautiful seaside community of Monterey.

McCallum agrees to go out to Donna Mills cliffside ocean house to 'check in on her well being" while Eastwood finishes his late night DJ shift.

And yes, Eastwood HAS studied Psycho passing well and Sgt. McCallum goes into the Arbogast slot but with a twist: whereas the private detective went up those fateful stairs to follow a lead to a witness, McCallum goes out to that cliffhouse in the dark to "make sure that somebody is OK." In both cases, both men don't really consider themselves in much danger. But they are. Fatally.

NYT critic Bosley Crowther called the original Psycho "obviously a low budget job," but the budget was HIGH enough to stage Arbogast's murder with the high-above long shot (done by special platform) and the surreal fall(via process screen.) Director Eastwood polishes off John Larch using a "realistic" ground level shot of Jessica Walter suddenly appearing in the darkness of the outside jungle-like tree and garden area to stab Larch -- once -- straight through the heart with a pair of scissors(hello, Dial M!) that remain in his chest as he falls backwards in a witty emulation of Arbogast's staircase fall -- complete with wide open mouth in shock.

CONT

[–] roger1 (3618) 23 days ago

Walter having actually murdered someone and threatening to do the same to Donna Mills, Eastwood arrives for the big climax and does what he was always capable of -- punches Jessica Walter in the face(as he did so many male miscreants in his career) , thus knocking her off the house balcony and off the seacliff (hello, Rebecca) to her death. Donna Mills saved, John Larch dead. The end.

I linger on this memory of Play Misty for Me because the film was INDEED a "stepping stone" from Psycho to Halloween, but so very much more interested in its PLOT(a woman scorned) than multiple stabbings and slashings. (The body count is one man murdered and one woman wounded, but surviving.)

By the 80's, Michael Myers and Jason triggered an avalanche of slasher movies(Happy Birthday to You, Happy Valentine's day, Terror Train, Prom Night) in which quality(plot) went out the window in favor of QUANTITY...murders every five minutes. As it had to be.

Note in passing: In the summer of 1972, Universal Pictures released Alfred Hitchcock's new "psycho strangler thriller," Frenzy. Hitchocck didn't make many movies by then, and most weren't considered all that good. Frenzy WAS..by the critics at least. To help support Frenzy, it went out to drive-ins on a double bill with the 1971 "Play Misty for Me."

But in my teenage crowd, at the drive-in in a group, seeing the double bill of Frenzy(which I had already seen at the Hollywood Cinerama Dome) and Play Misty for Me -- Play Misty for Me won the night in a post viewing vote. Good for Clint.