BODY HEAT (1981)
Directed by Lawrence Kadan
Warner Brothers, 113 minutes, R (nudity, language, violence)
★★★★★
A friend recently asked me about my favorite films of 1981 as part of an ongoing discussion of movies in the 1970s and early 1980s that many, including me, consider Hollywood’s second golden age. High on that list is director Lawrence Kasdan’s explosive debut, Body Heat. In addition to being a gripping film, you should consider it for a more somber reason; one its principals, William Hurt, just passed.
Body Heat is billed as an erotic thriller and that’s a superb handle. Body Heat focuses on the steamy relationship between Ned Racine (Hurt), a crooked and incompetent lawyer, and Matty Tyler Walker (Kathleen Turner), a dissatisfied married woman. Steamy is the right adjective for Ned and Matty. Body Heat pretty much made Turner’s career for as long as she could take her clothes off and excite audiences (male and female, I’m told) in doing so.
In short, Matty is married to Edmund Walker (Richard Crenna), a very wealthy man who keeps her in nice threads, fancy cars, and a rolling estate complete with its own lake and boathouse. Edmund is no dummy; before he and Matty tied the knot he secured a prenuptial agreement stipulating that if she files for divorce, she gets virtually nothing out of him. If, on the other hand, she’s his widow, she gets a healthy cut of his estate. Better yet, what if there’s a new will leaving everything to Matty? Then she and Ned could have as much sex as they want whenever they want and Ned will never have to screw up another legal proceeding. All they need to do is pull off the perfect murder and establish airtight alibis.
Remember that this is a 1981 film, not one from the days of the Hollywood Code, so there’s no longer any stipulation that you can’t get away with murder. That’s not to say, though, that Kasdan tossed out the old crime drama formula of cross, double cross, rinse, and repeat. What makes Body Heat such an intellectual treat in addition to a visual one is its is-anyone-who-they-seem-to-be? angle. Is Ned really incompetent, or just lazy? Can Matty be trusted to keep a secret? More to the point, can bombmaker Teddy Lewis (Mickey Rourke) keep his mouth shut? He’s a formal client of Ned’s and the guy he goes to for an incendiary device on burning down the building where he intends to dispose of Edmund’s corpse.
Body Heat is a terrific film with a conclusion that smacks you in the face. Before you get there, you are treated to three sparkling performances. Hurt is a hard-drinking, hard-loving, cigarette-puffing cynic. Turner, in addition to being striking and sexy, is every bit simpatico on the cynicism score. She slinks across the screen in ways that make us think we shouldn’t trust her, but we’re not certain why. Mickey Rourke as a mad bomber with a criminal record? Yeah, that’s believable.
What a debut for Lawrence Kasdan! This film is in color, but in many ways it’s a film noir given the use of light. Some scenes sport lurid contrasts–Turner in a stark white blouse and a tight red skirt, she and Hurt dressed in white standing outside at night in front of a neon-lighted storefront–and sometimes the screen might as well be in black and white as they cavort in near darkness. Kasdan also mastered dappled light, as in ambient light slanting through bedroom blinds, faces half lit, backlighting that captures Turner’s limbs beneath her dress, and smoke wafting through darkness. Kasdan and cinematographer Richard H. Kline even use Hurt’s bad 1970s hair and cheesy mustache to good effect.
Body Heat is often compared to the great classic film Double Indemnity and that’s apt. Kasdan’s next film was also a 1980s classic, The Big Chill. Alas, he never again directed anything that captured the critical acclaim of those two. Later, though, he did pretty well as a screenwriter for Raiders of the Lost Ark, several of Star Wars prequels, and The Bodyguard. None of those are my bag of popcorn and I’ve often wondered how he lost his directorial mojo. Well, at least we have Body Heat and it scorches.
Rob Weir
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