DRESSED TO KILL

year: 1980

cast: Angie Dickinson, Keith Gordon, Michael Caine, Nancy Allen

writer/director: Brian DePalma

rating: ****

The best part of a symphony, often unheard on a record or CD, is the orchestra tuning: that strange, hypnotic sound that exists for a short time - which then becomes something wonderful. This film builds to a wonderful symphony but without losing the eerie embryonic "tuning-up" that formed it. The plot and direction owes a great deal to Hitchcock's PSYHCO. The main character ... so it seems... is a troubled middle-aged woman (Angie Dickinson) who, right as we're getting into her dilemma/story-line, is suddenly butchered by a "female-like-person" (Michael Caine), actualy a man who acts normal but - it turns out - is a murderous cross-dresser. Nancy Allen (as a hooker/witness) and Keith Gordon (the brainy son of Dickinsen) are the Vera Miles and John Gavin who carry the film the rest of the way. We even get a psychiatrist's explanation liken to the one delivered by Simon Oakland; not one but TWO shower scenes; and what's missing with Martin Balsam's pesty investigator we get in grumpy police sergeant Dennis Franz (who doesn't fall backwards down a stairway). This is proof that remakes can be done-away-with entirely by taking the basic storyline of a classic film and morphing it into something completely original. I guess that's not an easy feat - which is why they'll probably remake this one day.

OBSESSION

year: 1976

cast: Cliff Robertson

writer: Paul Schrader

director: Brian De Palma

rating: **

Weaving dreamlike maze with an over-dramatic musical score that makes anything and everything seem bigger than it really is. There are moments when you're drawn into the story but never long enough to care. Brian De Palma is doing his usual Hitchcock imitation and the camerawork is lovely, as are the sets, and the actors are good but the acting is just okay. The script is the problem. And the title's very misleading. Fits a perfume better than this movie.

THE FURY

year: 1978

cast: Amy Irving, Kirk Douglas, Andrew Stevens, Daryl Hannah, Fiona Lewis, John Cassavetes

director: Brian DePalma

rating: **1/2

This is a bad movie, but oh how it delivers. Not quite sure what it wants to be, it aspires for action/adventure, a little horror, psychological drama, and of course tons of Hitchcockesque suspense. One story centers on Kirk Douglas who is supposedly killed by terrorists in front of his son, played by Andrew Stevens, a psychic boy-wonder under the care of evil John Cassavetes, wants to use his "powers" for the military, or something. And Douglas has to avoid the evil agents and try finding his son again. The initial action scenes involving Douglas are well-done. But the real star is Amy Irving as a young high school girl with even more psychic powers than Stevens, and she ends up at a home for "gifted children" (where she has visions of him). There are way too many cooks here, but not an entirely awful aftertaste. You will be entertained.