[.ca] Body Double (Widescreen/Full Screen) (ISBN 0767818040)

From Amazon.com:
Even Brian De Palma's staunchest defenders had to swallow hard with this gaudily gory bauble of a thriller that is built around a gruesome (yet surprisingly wittily staged) stalking and murder involving a female victim and a killer with a giant power drill. This is De Palma at his most sensational, in a story about a B-movie actor with career problems (Craig Wasson) and a habit as a voyeur. He witnesses the aforementioned murder, then teams up with a porn actress (Melanie Griffith) to try and find the killer. De Palma has a blast going inside the porn film industry, and even films a pseudo rock video with one-hit wonders Frankie Goes to Hollywood. Wasson is an unlikely leading man, bland and pasty, but he's perfect in the role of a decidedly imperfect hero. --Marshall Fine

POSSIBLY THE WORST MOVIE EVER MADE (Really):
Don't listen to the other reviewers. This movie is a new low in cinema -- I don't care that it is violent or exploitative or anything like that -- it is simply dull, badly made, laughably written, and a complete waste of your time. The ONLY nice part is that Melanie Griffith is not yet the puffy drunk plastic surgery victim she now is -- so it is interesting to see for that aspect alone. But wow, this movie is a complete loser.

sunken like a treasure ship:
Heres the story. Once upon there was a man who had this movie in his living room. Then his step-son brought it to his step-brothers and brothers room and watched it. After he FINISHED he put it in his brothers cupboard and left it there. Then his step-brother and brother found it and wondered where it came from. Baffled they decided to go sneak out onto a shut down bridge and leave it in the middle of it. Not long after that a construction team was brought in and they tore down the bridge. Legend has it that a crazy middle aged construction worker found it there moments before the bridge was blown away. He gave his life running back onto the bridge in hopes of retrieving it. Unfortunally neither came out alive and he lies at the bottom of the river in the most unbelievable peace known to man.

In Retrospect:
Lord, yes, it has problems, but get real, you wannabe filmmakers who never dared pick up a camera or risk your own money: there is nothing around better in American film than the wonderful/comic/goofy/ecstactic moment when Craig Wasson and Deborah Shelton suck each other into that 360 moment at Marina Del Rey with Pino Donaggios' wonderfully over-the-top synthesizers crackling like sparklers. Yes I love my Ozu and Welles and Shrader and Bertolucci, but for all of DePalma's weaknesses, he knows a good image and he understands obsession. And had sense enough to hire a good composer.

Depalma's Vertigo:
"Body Double" is, in every way shape and form, a modern masterpiece, the same way "Vertigo" was and is. Our lead man suffers a similar phobia and is enveloped by the same paranoia of a murder consipracy invloving the victim switch. Point of view shots are used in a simialr vein and our leading man constantly speaks in his best James Stewart drawl. Other than lacking the customary Deplama split screen (which would have made the most sense in this of all Depalma films) "Body Double" is spectacular. Low budget elements are a deliberate mesh with the story of making a low budget horror, dated music is well represented. The plot, on the other hand, is filmed with the brilliant conventions we come to expect from depalma. dennis franz is not as raw as he was in "Dressed to Kill". Any NYPD Blue fan has got to check out "Dressed To Kill" to see the real detective at work. Here, you actually never know what is real and what is set-up making "Body Double" a quintessential thiller for all lovers of the genre.

"Relax"- Hitchcock is alive, his name is Brian De Palma!:
Brian De Palma's Body Double is a classic in it's own category:Hitchcock. You watch this film and you'll think I didn't know Hitchcock still made movies who directed this? Well Brian I give you every single prop on this film. It is a great thriller, great story, and great film all together. It also has if I may say one of the greatest murders ever, if not the best! Anyway the movie is about a beat down B movie actor who is down on his luck with mental blocks during his performances, he'll get let go if he can't get his act together. With bad news like that he only comes home to his wife cheating on him with another man. After such a devestating discovery he goes searching for something more, when he meets a man who needs a house-sitter for his Hollywood mansion penthouse on a mountain that overlooks a complex with a sexy mysterious woman in one of the condos. Well while watching the house he becomes a peeping tom for this woman and notices her perculiar dance while stripping nude. He notices someone is stalking her and following her so he tries to tell her, but one night he witnesses her murder. It's a good one! Then he is watching tv and sees a porn star dancing on her video and notices that perculiar dance again so he gets together with her and tries to make a good porno, then solve a mystery of murder. Watch to see the ending!