Review of Dressed to Kill (1980) by Allan C — 20 Dec 2014

Fine Brian De Palma thriller. It's not up to "Blow Out" or "The Untouchables" levels of greatness, but I would put this among his better films. Angie Dickinson plays a lonely housewife who is seeing psychiatrist Michael Caine.

When she does decide to step out and seeks a lover outside of her marriage, things end up going quite horrifically wrong with one of the most effecively grizzly and stylish murder scenes committed to film, involving an elevator, mirrors and a straight razor.

This murder serves as the crux of the film with multiple people involved in solving the crime, including Dickinson's son, Keith Gordon, who teams up with prostitute Nancy Allen (then wife of director De Palma), and also detective Dennis Franz.

There's a great score by composer Pino Donaggio and familiar character actors David Margulies and Mark Margulies and even a funny and foreshadowing moment that features Phil Donahue. De Palma revisits some of his familiar themes of voyeurism and repressed sexuality.

De Palma also delivers a number of memorable set pieces including the opening shower scene, the elevator murder set piece, a flirtatious sequence at an art museum, a chase on the subway and two climactic scenes that bring all the themes of voyeurism and repressed sexuality to a head.

De Palma also unfortunately delivers his usual healthy dose of misogyny. De Palma has defended himself saying that's he's making suspense movies and what else is he supposed to do besides chopping up women and putting them in peril? That's a rather silly argument considering there are plenty of suspense films that are suspenseful without do that.

I think De Palma would be on firmer ground with this argument if this weren't he go-to role for women in just about ever one of his films. Still, if you can get by that, it's a solid thriller with some good twists, though the final one with Nancy Allen wasn't really necessary and was one he also used before in "Carrie.

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