Body Double (1984) Body Double
An erotic thriller written and directed by Brian De Palma (in Body Double, as director), starring Craig Wasson (in Body Double, as actor) as a struggling actor who witnesses what he believes is a murder while spying on a woman through a telescope. De Palma built the plot by grafting Rear Window's voyeurism setup onto Vertigo's identity-swap mystery, then routed the second half through the Los Angeles pornography industry.
"Brian De Palma came to me with a very general idea for Body Double. I immediately responded to its Hitchcockian theme of an innocent man drawn into a murder by a beautiful woman, who then sets out to solve the mystery with the aid of a beautiful blonde. Both Brian and I were, and are, huge fans of Alfred Hitchcock's movies. Together we screened Rear Window and Vertigo, and discussed the narrative strategies Hitch used in both films. So in a sense, I was working off of De Palma's ideas of Hitchcock's ideas." — Robert J. Avrech, OpEdNews (2013)
Quick Facts
| Detail | Info |
|---|---|
| Director/Writer | Brian De Palma (Body Double) (story and screenplay, with Robert J. Avrech) |
| Stars | Craig Wasson, Melanie Griffith, Gregg Henry, Dennis Franz (Body Double) |
| Composer | Pino Donaggio (Body Double) |
| Cinematographer | Stephen Burum |
| Editor | Jerry Greenberg, Bill Pankow |
| Production Designer | Ida Random |
| Production Company | Delphi II Productions |
| Distributor | Columbia Pictures |
| Budget | $10 million (the-numbers, boxofficemojo) |
| Box Office | $8,801,940 (domestic) (the-numbers, boxofficemojo) |
| Release Date | October 26, 1984 |
| Running Time | 114 minutes |
| MPAA Rating | R (after cuts; originally rated X) |
| Filmed In | Los Angeles, California |
Key Pages
- Plot Summary (Body Double)
- Cast and Characters (Body Double)
- Brian De Palma (Body Double)
- Production History (Body Double)
- The Hitchcock Connection
- Voyeurism and the Male Gaze
- The Chemosphere House
- The Drill Murder
- Holly Body and the Porn Industry Subplot
- The Controversy (Body Double)
- Critical Reception and Legacy (Body Double)
- Craig Wasson
- Melanie Griffith
- Dennis Franz (Body Double)
- Pino Donaggio (Body Double)
- Stephen Burum
- Telescope (Body Double)
- The Frankie Goes to Hollywood Sequence
- The Beach Kiss
- De Palma and the Giallo Tradition
- Themes and Analysis (Body Double)
- The Poster (Body Double)
Tagline
"You can't believe everything you see."
Genre Context
Body Double arrived at the exact intersection of three 1980s genre currents: the slasher film (still commercially potent after Halloween and Friday the 13th), the erotic thriller (about to explode with Fatal Attraction in 1987), and the Hitchcock revival that De Palma had been conducting since Sisters (1973). The film is simultaneously a love letter to Hitchcock, a provocation aimed at critics who called De Palma a copycat, and a commentary on an industry built on voyeurism.
"Body Double is an exhilarating exercise in pure filmmaking, a thriller in the Hitchcock tradition in which there's no particular point except that the hero is flawed, weak, and in terrible danger — and we identify with him completely." — Roger Ebert, RogerEbert.com (1984)
David Denby, writing in New York magazine, identified the filmmaking itself as the draw:
"gliding, sensual, trancelike style that is the most sheerly pleasurable achievement in contemporary movies" — David Denby, New York (November 5, 1984) (not available online; quoted in Wikipedia)
It was De Palma's follow-up to Scarface (1983), and the commercial disappointment stalled his momentum at a moment when he seemed poised to become a mainstream powerhouse. The Rotten Tomatoes consensus, written decades later, captures the reassessment: "Exemplifying Brian De Palma's filmmaking bravura and polarizing taste, Body Double is a salacious love letter to moviemaking." (rottentomatoes)