On D List of Movie Reviews
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Dressed to Kill (1980)
Rate:
9
Viewed:
8/12
8/12:
Although Body Double was made afterwards, Dressed to Kill feels like it picked up where the other one left off
and almost ended the same way: right in the shower.
Many Brian De Palma's films have been stylish and assiduous. Dressed to Kill is no
exception and is as neo-noirish as it gets. However, it has two flaws.
The first, notice the office door is windowless. Now, if that's the case, why does the boy have to go so far to use an
elaborate listening device to find out what the detective and the psychiatrist are saying in the room? Their conversation
can be practically heard with a naked ear.
The second, why is the hooker concerned about being implicated in the murder? No blood had been found on her body, regardless
the fact she was holding a razor blade in her hand.
Angie Dickinson is shown fully naked; however, it's not her body which was doubled by a Playboy model.
So, if she refused to do it, why bother casting her in the first place? Angie Dickinson shamelessly boasted
in interviews that it's her body they're looking at.
Keith Gordon is more tolerable this time around than he was in Christine. Michael Caine is boring. Nancy Allen should've
gotten accolades for her performance. There are two, perhaps three, scenes that pay homage to a couple of Hitchcock films:
Vertigo and
Psycho. Annoyingly, there are four false endings, dragging the time longer than necessary.
All in all, Dressed to Kill is an enjoyable murder mystery although figuring out the killer's identity is easy.