| Body Double | |
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Theatrical release poster |
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| Directed by | Brian De Palma |
| Produced by | Brian De Palma |
| Written by | Brian De Palma Robert J. Avrech |
| Starring | Craig Wasson Melanie Griffith Gregg Henry Dennis Franz Deborah Shelton |
| Music by | Pino Donaggio |
| Cinematography | Stephen H. Burum |
| Editing by | Gerald B. Greenberg Bill Pankow |
| Distributed by | Columbia Pictures |
| Release date(s) | October 26, 1984 |
| Running time | 114 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $10,000,000 |
| Box office | $8,801,940 |
Body Double is a 1984 American thriller film directed by Brian De Palma starring Craig Wasson, Melanie Griffith, and Gregg Henry. The film is an homage to Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo, Rear Window, and Dial M for Murder. The original musical score was composed by Pino Donaggio. The film was marketed with the tagline "You can't believe everything you see".
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The film begins and ends with the protagonist, Jake Scully (Wasson), playing the part of a vampire on the set of a low-budget horror film. After he ruins a take by being unable to rise from a coffin due to claustrophobia, a fire breaks out on the set and he is sent home by the director Rubin (Dennis Franz).
Scully arrives home early and catches his girlfriend having sex with another man. Since it is the girl's apartment, he must leave, so without a place to stay he heads to an acting workshop, where he makes a new friend, Sam (Henry).
Sam offers him a house-sitting arrangement at an opulent Modernist bachelor residence high atop the Hollywood Hills. He also points out a sexy female neighbor, Gloria Revelle (Miss USA 1970 Deborah Shelton), whose seemingly exhibitionistic antics can be viewed by telescope; she is a wealthy and beautiful woman who evidently performs a remarkable erotic dance at her window, nightly according to Sam, "just like clockwork."
Scully's nightly observations of this woman quickly lead him into a murder mystery. He follows Gloria one day and attempts to warn her that she's being stalked by an Indian with a disfigured face who could be a thief or worse. The mysterious Indian snatches Gloria's purse at the beach, is chased by Scully into a tunnel, and steals what is later discovered to be a card key to Gloria's house. In an ironic twist, Gloria "rescues" Scully by leading him from the tunnel in which he had frozen in a claustrophobic seizure during the pursuit. They briefly embrace, make out, and grope each other as the camera revolves in a continuous 360-degree arc, until Scully kisses her neck and Gloria comes to her senses, apologizes and pushes him away, adjusts her bra and blouse, and departs hastily. Back at the home he's using, Scully then becomes an eyewitness through the telescope as the young woman is brutally attacked and killed by the Indian, who pins her down and runs an electric drill the size of a jackhammer through her body - the auguring bit repeatedly emerges from the ceiling of the room below in a torrent of blood - after she catches him removing items from a wall safe. That a purported thief would have and use with extreme deadly force such an implement leads viewers to suspect that perhaps the murder was of a personal nature as opposed to merely a bungled burglary.
Investigating on his own, Scully pursues a porn queen, Holly Body (Griffith), whose "signature" dance - "a routine that's a sure ten on the peter meter" according to her - he recognized on a 24-hour porn channel. A descent into her sordid world follows, in which he lands a role in an adult film in order to meet her and then pretends to be a skilled porn director who wants to hire her. He takes credit for a mirror (which inadvertently reflects the camera and crew as the door on which it is hung swings open during the scene). Their trail takes them back to the bachelor pad, where Scully confesses that he is not a porn producer and does not want to cast her in a film, but instead points out the Revelle house and asks her if she was the woman he had observed doing the erotic dance routines in the window. During a brief telephone call from Sam to Scully, Holly identifies Sam as the man who had hired her to perform specifically for the supposedly voyeuristic Scully. She storms out in a blustery huff and is picked up while hitchhiking by the Indian, who knocks her out with a tire iron. Scully follows them on foot, scaling a gate through which the pair was purported to have just passed (but which is curiously locked with a double chain), and arrives at an open grave adjacent to the Owens Aqueduct that the Indian has just finished digging. It is not explained how the grave was dug so quickly. During the confrontation between Scully and the Indian that follows, Scully grabs at the Indian's face, inadvertently removing what is actually a makeup facial cast, revealing that the Indian is actually Sam. Sam then overpowers Scully, tossing him into the grave. When Scully is again frozen from his claustrophobia, Sam begins to bury him as he confesses his scheme, which was to set Scully up as a witness to Gloria's murder by the "Indian" and give Sam an alibi. The film then cuts to the set of the vampire movie, where Scully (wearing the dirt-caked leather jacket from the aqueduct grave scene instead of the vampire costume and heavy makeup as before) again freezes during the coffin scene and ruins the take. This time, however, he convinces Rubin to let him try it again. Cutting back to the grave, we see Scully overcome his claustrophobia and attack Sam, who is knocked into the aqueduct when his dog charges at Scully and misses. The film ends with Scully, back on the set and in his vampire costume, filming a shower sequence in which a body double of his next victim is being carefully inserted into the scene, while Holly watches with the film crew.
At one point in the film, we see a "film within a film," with Frankie Goes to Hollywood performing the song "Relax" on the set of a porn film, in which scream queen Brinke Stevens, adult actresses Cara Lott and Annette Haven appear. Slavitza Jovan, who appeared as Gozer the Gozerian in Ghostbusters the same year, briefly appears as a saleslady. Prolific voice actor Rob Paulsen, known for voicing Raphael of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Pinky of Pinky and the Brain, also makes a rare live action performance.
The film was shot in the Los Angeles area, and is notable for its inclusion of many recognizable locations, including Tail o' The Pup (a hot dog stand formerly on La Cienega Ave. at Beverly Blvd.), the Beverly Center, Barney's Beanery, the Farmer's Market, the swanky Rodeo Collection mall on Rodeo Drive, the gleaming Spruce Goose dome in Long Beach, the Hollywood Tower and adjacent Hollywood Freeway, Tower Records, and the iconic Chemosphere as the Modernist bachelor pad.
The movie was largely dismissed by some critics upon release, and even denounced outright by others. Brian De Palma earned a Razzie Award nomination for Worst Director for his work on Body Double. Only star Melanie Griffith received rave reviews from the film, earning a National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Supporting Actress, a Golden Globe Nomination as Best Supporting Actress, and the Motion Picture Booker's Club Award as "Star of Tomorrow."
However, Roger Ebert praised the movie, giving it three and a half out of four stars. The film developed a dedicated cult following, which remains strong today, perhaps due to its directorial and aesthetic indulgences, early 1980s new wave soundtrack, and the use of iconic Los Angeles locations.
But now, review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reports that 84% of critics have given the film a positive review based on 25 reviews, with an average rating of 6.6/10.[1]
The movie's trailer won a Clio Award in 1984.[2]
Body Double is referenced repeatedly throughout the Bret Easton Ellis novel American Psycho, as the favorite film of the protagonist and narrator, businessman and serial killer Patrick Bateman, who is drawn to the film's lurid violence and sexuality. He mentions that he has seen the film 37 times, and rents the tape of it from a video store several times in the story. He also occasionally repeats his preferred moments (the most violent scenes) from the film to the reader or to other characters, especially "the power drill scene" (he has apparently masturbated to this scene several times).
The futuristic octagon house Jake tends to is the Chemosphere, found in Los Angeles, California. Troy McClure resides in a near-identical household in an episode of The Simpsons, owing largely to Body Double.
Though often seen as partly a remake itself, Body Double was remade in 1993 in India as Pehla Nasha. The movie was directed by Ashutosh Gowariker, in his directorial debut. Deepak Tijori plays the lead role alongside Pooja Bhatt, Raveena Tandon and Paresh Rawal.
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