Given the subject matter I’m a little surprised De Palma couldn’t find a more expressive use for his signature split-screen and diopter shots, or other interests like voyeurism and electronic surveillance. I doubt De Palma was being what we’d call transphobic, but he does seem to have found something sensationalistic or weird in the subject matter. The initial idea seems to have arisen out of a combination of Psycho, the script De Palma had written for Cruising (a project that would be taken on by William Friedkin), and an episode on the talk show Donahue dealing with a transgendered person that’s briefly sampled here. I’m not sure what De Palma himself thought about all this. Times change, and so does the list of things that are likely to upset people. I don’t recall there being much of a fuss over the trans angle in this movie, though there was some controversy over Brian De Palma’s perceived misogyny. In 1960 just using the word “transvestite” to describe Norman Bates was considered shocking. When Silence of the Lambs came out there was some controversy over the portrayal of the transsexual killer. Even tweeners today know what real sex looks like, and it sure as hell doesn’t look, or sound, anything like this. Has Internet porn destroyed simulated sex? I think it probably has. ![]() From the shower we transition to the bedroom and some simulated sex. This has to be one of the most aggravating movie clichés ever and it’s nothing short of laughable both in this opening scene and even more so at the end with Nancy Allen. And she didn’t look like she was wearing layers of make-up. An aside: I know they’re just dreams in this movie, but at least Janet Leigh got her hair wet when she took a shower. Not, to put it midly, a very convincing body double for Angie Dickinson (a point that would help inspire De Palma’s Body Double). Suitable enough, I guess, since that’s Penthouse Pet Victoria Lynn Johnson in the shower. First we notice the sickening soft-focus camerawork by Ralf Bode, which was Penthouse magazine’s house style. The sexy stuff in Dressed to Kill seems downright laughable today, and right from the opening scene. But then nothing dates like what was once erotic. Today it doesn’t seem as surprising, suspenseful, or erotic. I think it had more of an impact in 1980 because Steadicam was still relatively new (it had first been used in Bound for Glory, released in 1976). I have to say this doesn’t impress me as much today. The other scene in the movie that gets a lot of attention (I mean aside from the elevator murder) is the art gallery business with Dickinson being pursued, and then pursuing, her mysterious lover. It’s also the drop-off from Dickinson to Nancy Allen, the fact that there’s no real surprise in revealing Michael Caine to be the cross-dressing killer, and the absolutely ridiculous dream ending that wraps things up. Nothing comparable to the murder of Arbogast, for example. It’s not just that nothing much happens after Angie Dickinson gets sliced up in the elevator. ![]() With Dressed to Kill, however, the same charge sticks a lot better. I don’t agree with that reading of Psycho, as I think there are a lot of interesting things about the rest of that movie. In fact he even says that the rest of the movie “stinks.” David Thomson, for example, thinks nothing in the second half of Psycho was worthy of the lead-up to Janet Leigh meeting her end in the shower. The same has also been argued with regard to Psycho. So of course it’s no surprise that nothing else in Dressed to Kill is quite as good. I still think it’s one of the great scenes in the history of screen horror. It took me a long time to get over the sheer creepiness of that moment. Their gaze meets, with both of their faces looking out toward us. What makes this moment so scary is the fact that the killer is looking at Liz in the mirror just as she’s looking at the killer. ![]() What I particularly love about it, and what totally unnerved me the first time I saw the film, was the use of the convex mirror in the corner of the elevator to let Liz (Nancy Allen) see the killer hiding from her, bloody razor blade ready to strike. Since Dressed to Kill is very much a feature-length homage to Hitchcock’s Psycho, this scene stands in the same place as the shower scene from that film, and in its own way it’s almost as good. If you remember anything from Dressed to Kill it’s likely to be the elevator murder scene.
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