MovieChat Forums > Play Misty for Me (1971) Discussion > Not sure if I misunderstood character or...

Not sure if I misunderstood character or wasn't my type of acting/script

posted 10 years ago by suzanne-lawson1
3 replies | jump to latest

I'm unsure if I didn't understand the character, or if it wasn't great script/acting. The way he was reacting was annoying me. When something drastic happened, he just sort of mumbled, then carried on as normal. He didn't really take any action that most people would if they had a crazy stalker. He could have called the police for her breaking and entering his house uninvited. He could have taken out an injunction. That's if you also do those things in the USA as we do in Britain. Heck he could have even shot her, as aren't people in the USA allowed to shoot people breaking into their house? OK shooting her might have been too drastic before she harmed anybody. Even after his housekeeper was stabbed, he hardly reacted or said much to the police.
I don't watch many Clint Eastwood films, but the last one I saw with him in was of a soldier in the civil war who ended up in a school for girls, who chopped off his legs and killed him.

[–] InherentlyYours 10 years ago

Because if he reacted more strongly he didn't know what she would do next. Isn't that what women say when they are asked why they never reported a man who stalked or raped them? He was not only afraid she would cause more trouble, but would harm herself also. This is beside the fact that we wouldn't have a plot, otherwise.

[–] 10 years ago

[deleted]

[–] rmoriarty97 9 years ago

You're correct, for a lot of the film he treated her as only a minor annoyance that would probably pass - in those early stages he didn't really recognise the danger. When she broke in and he found the knife in the pillow, he DID go to the police because he did start to get quite alarmed.