Dressed kill1/22/2024 If anything, I find the story of Kate Miller (Angie Dickinson), a sexually frustrated wife and mother who gets picked up by a stranger at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art and gets slashed to death hours later in the elevator of his apartment building by a mysterious "blonde woman," more disturbing and unsettling now than I did then. It's hard to believe it's been 42 years since my first exposure to Dressed to Kill, but the passage of time hasn't dulled the picture's impact. The criticisms weren't unfounded - they also could be leveled at Hitchcock and Hollywood itself, which began exploiting and mistreating women as far back as the early talkies when James Cagney smashed that half-grapefruit into Mae Clarke's face in The Public Enemy - but as the years passed it became clear if De Palma had any agenda at all it was simply to produce an artistic, edgy, psychosexual thriller. Allegations of misogyny, gratuitous female nudity, and violence against women plagued the film and dogged De Palma. Watching De Palma take Hitchcock's blueprint, amp it up for contemporary audiences, and put his individual stamp on it exhilarated me.ĭressed to Kill might seem tame today, but it was pretty hot stuff four decades ago, and more than a little controversial. I was a classic movie maven even then and caught all the Psycho parallels, but instead of dampening my enthusiasm for Dressed to Kill, they enhanced it. I bought the soundtrack album as soon as it was available and played Pino Donaggio's elegant score over and over. The intricacies of its plot, jaw-dropping twists and turns, Hitchcockian flavor, agonizing suspense, split screens and slow motion photography, and yes, all the sex and gore (hey, I was 18 then!) held me spellbound during multiple viewings. Raging Bull made the biggest impression on me, but I was obsessed with Dressed to Kill. Both films bowled me over with their brash technique and both fostered within me a deep appreciation for cinematic innovation and lyrical storytelling that continues to this day. The other was Brian De Palma's Dressed to Kill. Two movies released in 1980 changed my life.
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