Cast and Characters (Dressed to Kill) Dressed to Kill

Principal Cast

Kate Miller — Angie Dickinson

A sexually frustrated Manhattan housewife seeing psychiatrist Dr. Robert Elliott for problems in her marriage, Kate fantasizes about other men during her husband's perfunctory lovemaking and asks Elliott whether he finds her attractive. At the Metropolitan Museum of Art she plays a prolonged seduction game with a stranger, wordless and deliberate, then leaves with him for the afternoon. Returning to retrieve her forgotten wedding ring, she is slashed to death in the building's elevator by a tall blonde woman wielding a straight razor. Kate functions as the film's protagonist for its first act. Her murder at the thirty-minute mark transforms Dressed to Kill from character study into thriller, the structural pivot on which the entire narrative turns.

Dr. Robert Elliott — Michael Caine

A Manhattan psychiatrist treating Kate Miller, Elliott presents as composed and professional, deflecting her sexual advances with gentle firmness: "I love my wife and sleeping with you isn't worth jeopardizing my marriage."¹ After Kate's murder he cooperates minimally with Detective Marino, citing patient confidentiality. Threatening answering-machine messages arrive from a patient named "Bobbi," who claims to have stolen his razor: "I'm so unhappy... I'm a girl inside this man's body and you're not helping me to get out."² Elliott is revealed to be Bobbi, a transsexual alter ego emerging whenever he becomes sexually aroused by a woman. Bobbi kills to suppress the masculine desire that threatens her identity, the arousal itself triggering the personality shift.

Liz Blake — Nancy Allen

A high-class call girl who witnesses Kate's murder when the elevator doors open on a blood-soaked scene. Detective Marino treats her as suspect rather than witness, leveraging her prostitution record: "Let's face it, you're a whore... Now, who were you fucking?"³ Marked as Bobbi's next target because she can identify the killer, Liz teams up with Peter Miller to investigate, her street intelligence complementing his technical skills. She inherits the narrative from Kate at the act break, becoming the film's second protagonist and carrying it through Acts II and III.

Peter Miller — Keith Gordon

Kate Miller's teenage son, a tech-savvy inventor building a binary computer for a science championship. Peter's grief over his mother's death drives him to investigate when the police prove inadequate, his ingenuity filling the gap their procedures leave open. He sets up a time-lapse camera outside Dr. Robert Elliott's office to photograph patients and sprays homemade mace to save Liz Blake from the blonde attacker outside her apartment. At the precinct he tells Elliott: "My Mom wouldn't be dead if I had come with her."⁴ That guilt, fused with his resourcefulness, makes Peter the emotional conscience of the film's second half and its investigative engine.

Detective Marino — Dennis Franz

The investigating detective from the 13th Precinct, blunt and crude yet sharper than he initially appears. He pressures Liz Blake by calling her a suspect and threatening to book her, even as he recognizes that the killer is likely one of Elliott's patients. He maneuvers Liz into breaking into Elliott's office by suggesting that "a paranoid murder suspect" might search for evidence to defend her case, obtaining what he needs without a warrant.⁵ Marino assigns undercover officer Betty Luce to tail Liz, a calculated move that ultimately delivers the killer's capture.

Dr. Levy — David Margulies

A psychiatrist consulted by Dr. Robert Elliott about the patient Bobbi. In the film's expository climax Levy explains the transsexual diagnosis: Elliott and Bobbi were "opposite sexes inhabiting the same body," and "when Elliott got turned on, Bobbi took over... trying to kill anyone that made Elliott masculine sexual."⁶ After Elliott's confession, Levy called Detective Marino, his phone call triggering the trap that leads to Elliott's capture.

Supporting Cast

Actor	Role
Betty Luce	Nurse / Undercover officer Betty Luce
Susannah Clemm	Betty Luce (the blonde undercover cop)

Footnotes