SLEUTH: Doppler Jeopardy

This post, Sleuth: Doppler Jeopardy, is my entry for the Vivien Leigh and Laurence Olivier Blogathon, hosted by Kendra Bean.

(Warning: You may find Spoilers amongst the clues!)

In honor of our Fearless Leader Kendra's Vivien Leigh and Laurence Olivier Appreciation Blogathon, we of Team Bartilucci are proud to participate by saluting one of our absolute favorite films of all time: the 1972 film adaptation of Sir Anthony Shaffer's diabolically suspenseful, witty international stage smash Sleuth.

Dorian says: Vinnie was particularly keen to participate, having loved Sleuth even before I did, so props to my dear hubby for writing the lion's share of this post! Director Joseph L. Mankiewicz of the Oscar-winning All About Eve (among so many other smart, entertaining movies) was a top-notch choice to direct the film version. Cole Porter songs are sprinkled throughout John Addison's sprightly, playful Oscar-nominated score. Ken Adam's production design for Andrew Wyke's grand home, Cloak Manor, is mouth-watering; we want to live there when we grow up! Mankiewicz’s dark, twist-laden, cracking good comedy-thriller works on many levels, including as an indictment of the class system. Too bad Sir Laurence Olivier and Michael Caine couldn’t have won some kind of Team Oscar for their work in this one; you know, like the Screen Actors Guild Awards. In 2007, Sleuth was remade with Kenneth Branagh at the helm, with Caine now in the Olivier role and Jude Law in Caine’s original role.  A great remake is rare (the best ones that leap to mind are the 1941 Maltese Falcon and the 2001 Ocean’s Eleven), but the first half of the Sleuth remake was sleek and entertaining, until it suddenly took a bizarre wrong turn into gay-bashing and humiliation—not our idea of fun! In the meantime, you can still find copies of the out-of-print DVD edition of Sleuth on Netflix or even your local video store, so by all means seek it out!  Take it away, Vinnie!

Vinnie says: In a perfect world, a mystery should keep the audience guessing. With enough twists and turns, you shouldn't have a clue (pardon the choice of words) of the outcome, while still playing fair enough that a viewer might succeed, or could at least admit that he could have once the facts were laid out in the dénouement.

Sleuth has an unfair advantage. It's not a mystery. There is no murder (OK, there's one), so there's no need to play fair with the audience. There are only two men, one pompous and petty, the other angry as hell, in a long game of cat and mouse. The scenes play out so long that your confidence that things are as they are is stretched just past the point of confidence, and as soon is it is, they pull the rug out from under you.

Cloak Manor in the merry month of maze

Sir Laurence Olivier plays Andrew Wyke, endlessly award-winning author of the St. John Lord Merridew mysteries. Andrew is a classic upper-class British aristocrat, and has filled his home and his life with an obsession for games, puzzles and other things used by the insufferably intelligent to prove they are smarter than "ordinary people." He's dictating the end of his latest mystery as the film begins, safely hidden within his vast garden maze, which is of course rigged with cheats so he can win. He's met by Milo Tindle (Michael Caine), a hairdresser who's been having an affair with Andrew's wife Marguerite. Andrew is remarkably polite and accepting of the situation; indeed, he wants to arrange a scenario where everyone wins.

We’re not in Brother Lightfingers’ abbey, we’re in a hurry!

Andrew lays out the board simply: if Milo runs off with Marguerite, she'll need a divorce, and she will take Andrew for far more than he wishes or feels she deserves. However, if Milo plays the role of a burglar, steals a large cache of Marguerite's jewelry from the house safe, and fences them with a gentleman whose contact information Andrew will supply, Andrew will be able to get reimbursed for the loss from his insurance, Milo and the lovely Marguerite will end up with more money than they would from a divorce (especially since it'll be under the table and tax-free), and everybody can walk away whole and unravaged by the law. Milo agrees, and Andrew drags him about the house in a mad pantomime of a robbery, dressing him in a clown costume, walking him through the robbery and guiding him as to what bits of the house he should upset to make it look as if a scuffle has taken place. This last portion is where Milo chooses to stray from the script and get a tad more zealous in his disarraying activity.  (Dorian says: As writers ourselves, we can empathize with Andrew's dismay as Milo tossed his new manuscript all over Andrew's luxurious home! OK, back to Vinnie!)

The Day The Clown Cried—For Help!

Things take a turn for the hearse when Andrew points his gun at Milo and informs him that this has all been a plan for Milo to incriminate himself as a burglar, so that Andrew could legally shoot him in defense of his home. Dropping the friendly attitude he's had through the larcenous romp, he declares himself so far above Milo in station and intellect that he barely considers this to be murder. He fires the gun at the base of Milo's skull, Milo tumbles down the stairs of the living room in a crumpled heap, and Andrew calmly heads back downstairs to tidy up.

End scene.
Not bad, eh?

It was at this point in the stage play that Alan Bates left the theater after being offered the role of Milo, as he thought a character that dies midway through the story a la Psycho was beneath his position as an actor. In fairness, he's not the first to have jumped to that conclusion. (Though it does show that it's wise to sit through the entire play before making up your mind!)

Laura, er, Marguerite is the face in the misty light...

The narrative continues an unspecified period of time later. Andrew is puttering about his home, alone (as he always is — we never meet his wife Marguerite, save for her portrait, painted to resemble Joanne Woodward) when the doorbell rings. It's Inspector Doppler (Alec Cawthorne) who comes to ask about the mysterious disappearance of one Milo Tindle. At first feigning any knowledge of the man, when the Inspector presents a note in Andrew's handwriting, found in Milo's home, asking that they meet, Andrew is forced to put his cards on the table. Milo, he explains, was here, put through a series of escapades, and finally, Andrew shot him.

With a blank.

The entire affair was to put Milo through such terror and humiliation as to find out his true mettle, to see if he was "worthy" of his wife. Andrew decided he was, and when he awakened, Milo was allowed to leave, if not with his pride intact, at least his head.

Oh, you've got brown eyes, oh, you've got blue eyes....

The inspector is appalled to learn that someone could play such a ghastly trick on another person, and insists that he inspect the home. Andrew agrees happily, but when Doppler begins to find evidence of a far more serious act than a mere April Fool's trick (blood on the stairway, Milo's clothes balled up at the bottom of the wardrobe), he puts forth the theory that Andrew had, in fact, killed Mr. Tindle, albeit accidentally, and has disposed of the body to make the problem vanish. Andrew is dumbfounded and protests his innocence, insisting that his tale is true, and more than a little offended that this flatfoot wouldn't just take the word of a gentleman at face value and leave. As he begins to panic that he may be arrested for a crime that never even happened, let alone one he didn't commit, Doppler lowers the boom. He begins to remove makeup and padding, standing revealed as...Milo Tindle (Caine)! With the help of some stage makeup artist mates and a key he obtained from another acquaintance, he set up this charade to take Andrew to that point of fear for his life that Milo experienced. Andrew begins to regain his composure, and immediately starts shoring up the levees that his panic nearly burst. He knew it was Milo all along, was playing along to give him the fun of the game, a verbose version of "I let you win." (Dorian says: Surrrre you did, Andrew.... See how you like it, buster! Back to Vinnie!))

And that's when Milo reveals Act Two. While at the house to set up the evidence, he met Andrew's mistress, a young bit of stuff named Téa. They spoke, she had no problem believing that Andrew would play such a trick, Milo shags her rotten...and then strangles her. He then explains that he has contacted the police. They will be there within the hour to ask Andrew about, not Milo's disappearance, but Téa's. And Milo has planted three pieces of incriminating evidence about his palatial home to connect Andrew to the murder . He's sure the police will find them soon enough, but for Andrew to do so within this tight time frame, he'll need to play Milo's game.

Is it me, or is Andrew a little TOO into his toys?

The film ends with one dead body, police at the door, and the laughter of Laurence Olivier over some jaunty harpsichord music. And we haven't spoiled the ending at all.

While they give credits for several actors (including the aforementioned Alec Cawthorne, which is "a virtual anagram" of the words "or Michael Caine" if you manipulate a couple letters), it's a two-man play, and both Olivier and Caine were nominated for Oscars, among other major awards. Anthony Shaffer won a Tony and an Edgar, among other prizes. Sleuth rivals Deathtrap as the perfect comedy-thriller.

Kenneth Branagh remade Sleuth in 2007, with Caine graduating up to Sir Larry's role and Jude Law stepping into Milo Tindle's pricey Italian loafers. The first half of the film is very well done, with many technological upgrades to make Milo's attempted robbery all the more embarrassing, and the threat of murder after the act more realistic and less imperious. But alas, the last act descends into an overlong game of "Fag."

Perhaps it wasn't called that in your circles. Back in the days of childhood, before we Knew Better, boys would go to great lengths to get their friends to admit that at times, in the secret part of their heart, they'd thought that that guy was attractive, or that they'd wondered fleetingly wht it might be like to touch certain things or have certain things in their mouth. As soon as they would, the other assembled friends, who attoseconds before were swearing it was just between them, no one would mock anyone, lifted their fingers and pointed like Donald Sutherland at the end of the 1978 version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers and scream "FAAAAAAAAG!!!!!!!"

It's annoying, outdated, and shoehorned in from so far out in left field that it makes one want to wash. In short, it can't hold a candlepin to the original. The 1972 version of Sleuth holds up today, and can still surprise new viewers. It is worth missing a hand or two of cards and watching.

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Wow, I think this may have been one of Team Bartilucci's most prolific writing weeks to date! After you've read (and enjoyed, we hope!) our Sleuth blog post, feel free to visit Tales of the Easily Distracted for our very recent post about James Garner, "Discretion is the Garner Part of Valor." 

DRESSED TO KILL: It's Delightful, It's Demented, It's DePalma!

DANGER! You have entered The House Where Spoilers Dwell!

Before I talk about this week’s movie, Dressed to Kill (1980), please allow me to share the story of my one-scene stand with writer/director/producer Brian DePalma and a guy named Joe during a press junket for a different DePalma movie.

Yes, you read that right! It was 1984, and I was a Junior earning my B.A. in Communications at Fordham University. I wrote for the more freewheeling of the school’s two newspapers—titled the paper, appropriately enough. So I was invited, along with my fellow college film critics, to attend a press screening of DePalma’s upcoming thriller Body Double at Columbia Pictures’ Manhattan headquarters. Before and after the screening, I’d been chatting pleasantly about movies and such with a young fella we’ll call “Joe.” After the screening, DePalma was peppered with questions. One guy was particularly eager to learn more about the filming of the super-hot, marvelously over-the-top make-out-verging-on-sex scene on the beach between stars Craig Wasson and Deborah Shelton, a sexy homage to Vertigo with the camera swooning and swooping around the couple. (Ironically, both actors were dressed.)

DePalma said he’d be glad to demonstrate how he’d done it, if he could have a male and female volunteer from the audience. Just for fun, Joe and I volunteered. We figured DePalma would just walk around us and discuss the blocking of the scene and such. To our surprise, DePalma said, “Okay, start kissing.” We thought he was kidding, but no, our fearless director said, “Okay, roll ’em. Put your arms around her….” Honest to God, there we were, two college writers who barely knew each other, kissing and moaning and manhandling each other just like in the movie scene, while DePalma simultaneously directed us and explained the anatomy of the scene to the audience. I can’t speak for Joe, but I must blushingly admit I was so caught up in our hot love scene, I barely heard a word DePalma said! I guess Joe and I displayed natural chemistry together, because DePalma seemed quite pleased and our audience was

clearly enjoying themselves, too. We each had a honey at the time, so nothing else came of our little one-scene stand, but I won’t lie to you: it was lots of fun. I’m glad we didn’t have to undress, though!

Yikes! Is Liz seeing a body double?

The more sensitive moviegoers among us have often accused DePalma of exploiting women; shamelessly manipulating audiences (but isn’t that part of a director’s job?); and ripping off classic directors, especially Alfred Hitchcock (for plots and camerawork) and Dario Argento (for stylish giallo-style bloodletting). But just like Hitchcock had been at the peak of his powers during the 1950s, DePalma was

similarly riding high from the 1970s through the ’90s, giving thriller-lovers the ride of their lives. Since he began making movies in the 1960s, DePalma has embraced many genres, including offbeat comedies; horror; gritty crime dramas (including Scarface and The Untouchables, both stylish and suspenseful remakes); war dramas, and even science fiction. But DePalma was best known to movie buffs of my generation as our Master of the Macabre. Sisters (1973), Phantom of the Paradise (1974), Obsession (1976), Carrie (1976), and The Fury (1978) were fine warm-ups, but I’ve always felt that it was DePalma’s 1980 thriller Dressed to Kill (DtK) that really put him on the map and set his style in stone. 

 

*YIKES!*  Er, sorry, lady, wrong floor, gotta run!"

DtK was the first R-rated, “mature”-themed film that my friends and I were truly eager to see. Controversy, sex, transvestites, gore, naughty words—and nobody was more eager to see it than us Catholic high school girls! But for the first month of DtK's run, every showing was sold out all day, every day, whether we tried to see it in our Bronx neighborhood or midtown Manhattan. Every theater had lines around the block, brimming with people waiting to get into the next show in the days before Moviefone or Fandango. Undaunted, my best high school bud Cris Yablonsky and I braved a still-long line at the Beekman Theatre on a weekday (the film came out in July, so we weren’t skipping classes). At last, we reached the box office, money in hand—only to have the ticket-seller peer at 16-year-old Cris and 17-year-old-but-younger-looking me, muttering, “Youse kids’re too young to get in widdout a parent or guardian.”  Our pleas to the contrary fell on deaf ears, and we stomped up Second Avenue, ranting about the unfairness of it all in language that made DtK's  salty dialogue sound like a lecture from our Religion class! Eventually my older brother Peter took me to see DtK. I was wowed, even if I did end up watching the scarier, gorier scenes between my fingers! 

"Whadda ya wanna do tonight, Liz?"
"I dunno, Peter, whadda you wanna do tonight?"

At 17, I thought DtK was the height of sophisticated suspense, with its elegant New York City locations, Ralf Bode's dreamlike cinematography, frank-for-1980 sexual shenanigans, and its air of playful luridness, accompanied perfectly by Pino Donaggio’s Bernard Herrmann-esque score, complete with shrieking violins as needed. When reviewers described DtK as a sexier, bloodier remake of Psycho, I eagerly sought out Hitchcock’s classic. I loved it as much as DtK, though I’ll admit I found Hitchcock’s brooding atmosphere and gradual menace just as mesmerizing as DePalma’s visual pyrotechnics and gore. Both DVDs are sitting together in our home video library, of course!  A movie ticket to DtK was a passport to The Wild World of Brian DePalma. We put logic aside and enjoyed the Hitchcock-Meets-Argento ride. In the context of DePalma’s fictional universe, the plot plays less preposterous than it sounds on paper. We start with the first of DtK’s bevy of beautiful neo-Hitchcockian New York blondes, Kate Miller (Angie Dickinson). Lonely, sexually frustrated Kate hooks up with a handsome stranger (played by Ken Baker, whose two-tone shoes would have done Bruno Anthony proud) after a sexy cat-and-mouse pursuit in The Metropolitan Museum of Art (the interiors were actually filmed at The Philadelphia Museum of Art). A passionate time is had by both until Kate discovers Health Department paperwork revealing that her handsome stranger has an STD—the gift that keeps on giving! But Kate won’t have to worry about fessing up to hubby; on her nervous way out of the STD stud’s apartment house, poor Kate is brutally murdered in the elevator by a tall blonde woman wearing sunglasses and wielding a mean straight razor. (Love that cute yet unnerving kid in the elevator!) Ever notice how these kind of controversial thrillers, with their oh-so-modern mores, use the most old-fashioned murder weapons? DtK had its straight razor, Basic Instinct had its ice pick, and so on.

With DtK’s Janet Leigh manqué dead, the leading-lady crown is passed to high-class blonde call girl/stock-market whiz Liz Blake (Carrie’s Nancy Allen—Mrs. DePalma at the time). Liz witnesses the murder as she leaves a “date” she had in the building. Police Detective Marino (Dennis Franz) growls, “What kind of building is this? Everybody’s gettin’ laid after lunch?” (Is that an asset or a liability to the local housing market?) Like so many thriller protagonists, Liz just had to pick up the straight razor and get her fingerprints all over it!  Since no one else saw the real killer, Marino tells Liz she’s the most likely suspect. Marino also grills Kate’s psychiatrist, Dr. Robert Elliott (Michael Caine), who pleads patient confidentiality. “Mrs. Miller is beyond the point of bein’ embarrassed by anything you might have to tell me,” snaps Marino.  Dr. Elliott knows the truth: the killer is one of his patients, Bobbie, a transvestite who leaves threatening messages on Dr. Elliott’s answering machine (played by the voice of Phantom of the Paradise’s William Finley), sneering that he killed Kate to take revenge on Elliott for nixing his sex-change operation (or gender reassignment surgery, as we say here in the 21st century). Having made eye contact with Liz at the murder scene, Bobbie’s got her on his hit list.

Luckily, Kate's teenage son Peter (Keith Gordon, on whom I had a crush at the time; now he's a film director himself with films like A Midnight Clear and the film version of The Singing Detective), has been playing amateur detective with various DIY gadgets his electronics-whiz brain has cooked up, including hidden mics and cameras and homemade mace with which he saves Liz on the subway after she’s trapped by both Bobbie and a street gang. Grateful Liz and vengeful Peter team up to smoke out Kate’s killer. Their only weapons are Peter’s inventions and Liz’s, um, feminine wiles. She strips to black undies and lacy garters, talking dirty in a nighttime therapy session with Dr. Elliott in order to distract/seduce him long enough for her to find his patient records and get the suspected killer's name. Nancy Drew was never like this!

But, surprise—Dr. Elliott himself is Mrs. Bates, er, Bobbie!  NYPD officer Betty Luce (Susanna Clemm), whom Liz thought was Bobbie when she spotted Luce tailing her just before the subway scene, shoots Dr. Elliott in the neck before he can murder Liz, and he’s off to Bellevue. The Psycho motif comes full circle as kindly Dr. Levy (David Margulies) explains to Liz, Marino, and Luce that Elliott was a dual personality, with Bobbie going homicidal whenever Elliott became “masculinely sexual,” like when he was attracted to Kate and Liz. But the end of DtK is more DePalma than Hitchcock or Argento, starting with a hilarious scene at Windows on the World, where Liz cheerfully explains the fine art of gender reassignment surgery while a horrified lady lunching at the next table overhears them.  (This scene usually suffers in TV’s “pan-and-scan” version—like cutting out all the gore and sex wasn’t enough!)  The film ends with a “The nightmare’s not over!” set piece involving the most surreal view of Bellevue you’ll ever see; a sexy nurse; and Elliott on the loose to menace poor Liz as she tries to unwind in Peter's shower.  Don’t worry, Liz is just having a bad dream after her nerve-shattering experience.  Luckily, the caring Peter is there to comfort her just before the end credits.  *Whew!* Any questions?

The passing years have made DePalma's once-controversial attitudes towards women and sex, at least as portrayed in DtK and his other thrillers, seem almost naïve at best, and sometimes nastily sexist at worst. Much as I enjoyed Nancy Allen and Keith Gordon in the movie, can you really see lovable nerd Peter ending up with sexy, worldly call girl Liz in the real world?  Granted, opposites reportedly attract! Having said that, as a filmmaker, DePalma knows his craft, having learned it from the masters, making his work seem like homages rather than rip-offs.  In DtK, his lush visual style is aided and abetted by Ralf Bode’s gorgeous cinematography.  DePalma has a terrific eye for composition, making effective use of screen tricks such as split screens and 360-degree shots, conveying lots of info in each shot.  For instance, pay close attention to the scene where Angie Dickinson steps out onto the Met’s steps and sees her handsome stranger proffering her lost glove from the cab’s window. Don’t blink, or you’ll miss Caine as Bobbie during the camera’s glide from Dickinson to the taxi!  DePalma plays with the audience’s emotions like a master puppeteer; he knows how to time events and effects for maximum suspense. Moreover, DtK successfully combines laughs and scares, especially when it comes to urban terrors like subway thugs.  (Ironically, one of the actors who plays one of the thugs who chase Nancy Allen in the subway scene was later arrested for assault in real life.)

DePalma’s directorial style strikes a fine balance with the actors’ genuine warmth and spunk. As Dr. Elliott, Michael Caine comes off as urbane yet concerned about Kate and his other patients, at least until we see his true colors. (And Caine looks surprisingly convincing in drag, too, though I understand body doubles were sometimes used as well.)  As Kate Miller, Angie Dickinson makes your heart go out to her, with her gentle voice, sad brown eyes, and wistful, hopeful smile.  When Dickinson sets out for a sexual adventure, she seems like a lonely soul looking for love and affirmation, not some bold hussy. When she’s brutally murdered, you feel terribly sorry for her and furious at the bastard who’d do this to such a sweet lady. In their only scene together, Dickinson and Gordon project real warmth and caring about each other.  You can believe this kid loved his mom, in a healthy way (something you sure didn’t see in Psycho!), enough to want to nab her killer himself. To paraphrase one of my favorite lines from Diva (1981), the role of hard-bitten call girl Liz Blake suits apple-cheeked girl-next-door Nancy Allen so badly that it suits her very well!  If DePalma was counting on his then-wife’s wholesome aura (Allen is one of the few people who can make the foulest swear words sound cuddly) to make her raunchy character appealing, he was right on the money. I really liked the gentle tenderness that grows between Allen and Gordon; it makes their characters’ unlikely relationship more believable in spite of itself.  I also found it endearing that with everyone else in the film, Allen’s Liz wears either slutwear or elegant yet sensual dressy outfits, but with Gordon’s Peter (Peter & Gordon!), she wears demure sweater-and-skirt ensembles, T-shirts (not tight ones, either) and jeans, and flannel pajamas.  Even her hairstyle looks more wholesome in her scenes with Peter!  Finally, let’s not forget Dennis Franz, who steals every scene he’s in as polyester-and-vinyl-clad, crude, no-bullshit New York cop Marino. Franz was so good in this role, he’s been pretty much playing it ever since:  After teaming up with DePalma and Allen again as a sleazy photographer in Blow-Out (1981), Franz went on to greater fame playing crude but essentially likable cops on TV, most notably on Steven Bochco’s Hill Street Blues and NYPD Blue.  Vinnie and I love Franz’s sarcastic way of expressing himself; it’s as if he’s mentally making quotation marks with his fingers.

Unlike his beloved Hitchcock, who let his blonde heroines smolder from within, DePalma puts his female characters’ sexuality right out front and center where moviegoers could see it!  Every woman in DtK but Angie Dickinson seems to have super-glossy fire-engine-red lips, making them look, depending on your mood, either sexy in a trashy way, or as if they’d just bitten someone and drawn blood.  And wouldn’t you know they all have sexy underwear! How come we never see the guys’ underwear?

Finally, I just couldn’t wrap up this look back at DtK without mentioning something that I, as a native New Yorker, always get a huge kick out of. Filmmakers often play fast and loose with a major city’s geography so as to be able to use its more picturesque sites for key scenes.  DePalma is no exception.  Angie Dickinson’s museum scene, the interiors and paintings,  actually belong to the Philadelphia Museum of Art, but when Ms. Dickinson goes outdoors, she’s definitely on the steps of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Vinnie and I always joke that she gave that handsome stranger one hell of a merry chase!

"Didja hear the one about the
Hitchcockian Blonde? This'll kill ya...."

So does DePalma with DtK — a merry, mad chase through cinematic plot devices old and new.  Whether you enjoy the film for what it is or squawk about its cheerfully “politically incorrect” mindset, you sure as hell won’t be bored!  I guess that’s why it’s stayed with me when so many more “respected” films haven’t.