Body Heat (1981)

Body Heat
Directed by Lawrence Kasdan
1981/USA
The Ladd Company through Warner Bros
Repeat viewing
#673 of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

[box] Matty: [to Ned] You aren’t too smart, are you? I like that in a man.[/box]

It’s 1001 Movie Sunday and the Random Number Generator has come through again, this time with a neo-noir gem from the ’80’s.

Ned Racine (William Hurt) is a womanizing lawyer, with few scruples and less brains, in a small Florida town.   During a scorching summer, he meets Mattie (Kathleen Turner), a seductive married lady, and decides he must have her.  So begins a plot a bit reminiscent of Double Indemnity with several differences.  It would be criminal to give anything away.  With Richard Crenna as Mattie’s husband; Ted Danson as Ned’s friend the Assistant D.A.;  J.A. Preston as Ned’s friend the police detective; and Micky Rourke as an arsonist.

A modern-day Medusa

This was screenwriter Lawrence Kasdan’s directorial debut and he worked from his own script which perfectly captures the cynicism and irony of classic film noir.  He shows a deep understanding of the noir style and sensibility and updates it seamlessly.  It is as if the film makers for such classics as Out of the Past were suddenly given a budget to shoot in color and the opportunity to make the sexual hold of the femme fatale over the protagonist explicit instead of implied.   Heat permeates the film and a kind of red glow blankets the lovers to replace some of the chiaroscuro lighting of the films noir.

The ingenious story works well on its own but is doubly delicious in the context of the older films to which it refers.  The cast is uniformly excellent.  I am particularly fond of Kathleen Turner’s Mattie, who must be one of the most thoroughly ruthless vamps in film history.  The jazz-inflected score by John Barry adds to the atmosphere.

Mickey Rourke’s scene