Body Heat (Deluxe Edition)

 

Picture: B     Sound: B-     Extras: B+     Film: A-

 

 

Remakes or reworkings of classic films seldom work.  Body Heat, a reworking of Billy Wilder's Double Indemnity (1944), is one of the rare exceptions.  It's one of the best films of 1981, one of the last great years for American movies.

 

Of the two remakes from that year (many consider Body Heat an unofficial remake) of 1940s film noirs based on a James M. Cain novel  -- Bob Rafelson's remake of The Postman Always Rings Twice came out earlier in '81 and flopped -- Body Heat was the much better received of the two and became a moderate hit.

 

Impeccably made on every level, Body Heat marked the directorial debut of Lawrence Kasdan, who had already gained some standing within the industry by writing the screenplays for two George Lucas-produced blockbusters, The Empire Strikes Back and Raiders of the Lost Ark.

 

Writer-director Kasdan changes the profession of the male lead from insurance salesman (played by Fred MacMurray in Double Indemnity) to a low-rent Florida lawyer named Ned Racine (William Hurt).  Ned's compulsive womanizing makes him putty in the hands of Matty Walker (a tantalizingly seductive Kathleen Turner in her film debut), the much younger wife of a rich, shady businessman (Richard Crenna as Edmund Walker) -- ironically, it was Crenna who played the MacMurray role in a 1973 made-for-television remake of Double Indemnity.

 

After briefly playing hard to get, Matty invites Ned home to check out her chimes with her hubby away on a business trip.  Soon a torrid love affair is underway between the two of them in the middle of a Florida heat wave.  A lot of steamy, sweaty sex scenes ensue that were considered quite racy by early '80s standards, and still retain much of their heat 25 years later.

 

Before long, Matty is complaining to Ned about her "mean, small" husband, and he and Matty begin plotting how they can remain together.  There's also the matter of Edmund's lucrative life-insurance policy at stake.

 

The suspenseful and supersexy Body Heat is one of those movies where all the crucial elements click, from Kasdan's smart dialogue to Richard H. Kline's atmospheric cinematography to John Barry's memorably moody musical score in the style of 1940s and '50s film noirs.  There's also a first-rate supporting cast featuring early turns by future stars Ted Danson and Mickey Rourke.

 

Heated up for the modern era with ample amounts of sex and nudity, this enthralling story of deception, greed and murder is an absolute sizzler and an example of neo-noir at its finest.

 

Warner Bros. new Deluxe Edition DVD of Body Heat comes with a new digital, director-approved 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen transfer with 5.1 Dolby Digital Surround sound.  It looks good and sounds decent, considering its age.  The film was originally an optical monophonic theatrical release, but John Barry’s music score was in stereo and it shines here.  The extras include five deleted scenes that could have easily remained in the final cut.  There are three new featurettes consisting of retrospective interviews with cast and crew -- one of the most interesting things learned is that Body Heat was filmed during an unusually chilly Florida winter, so its convincing depiction of heat and humidity was attained simply by good acting and filmmaking.  However, it's never mentioned during the interviews how much the film owes to Double Indemnity, as if Kasdan or Warner Bros. doesn't want viewers to know.  Also included are two old interviews (one with Turner and one with Hurt) recorded during the film's promotion back in 1981, and the original theatrical trailer.

 

 

-   Chuck O'Leary