Review: Play Misty for Me

Smooth jazz DJ and all-round ladies’ man Clint Eastwood is trying to be a good boy for his girl (Donna Mills) who is back in town. Unfortunately, a prior one-night stand with his #1 fan/request caller (Jessica Walter) doesn’t understand this change of heart, and being that she’s a homicidal loon, she doesn’t take well to Clint’s insistence that their casual night together was a one-time dealer. Lock up your bunnies! John Larch plays a sardonic police detective, James McEachen is Clint’s suave co-worker, Clarice Taylor is Clint’s cleaning lady, and frequent director Don Siegel plays a bartender.

Before a miscast Glenn Close literally boiled a bunny, there was this 1971 ‘bunny boiler’ from star and debut director Clint Eastwood (“Unforgiven”, “Million Dollar Baby”, “Hereafter”, “Sully”). Personally I think it’s his best directorial effort to date, and the best film of its chosen subgenre. If it were a little more taut, it could’ve been a minor masterpiece.

Some might not understand why, but Eastwood perfectly casts himself as a pants man in this (and he played a slightly similar part in “The Beguiled”), but if you’ve read anything about his romantic/personal life…yeah, he fits this role alright. He’s also convincing as a jazz enthusiast, as he is one in real-life. What I like about him in this and to an extent in “The Beguiled” is that the character he plays is flawed. In this, his casual way with the ladies gets him in trouble. So while it may be a bit egotistical to cast yourself as a ladies’ man in your directorial debut, his character here has the near-fatal flaw of being so eager to get laid that he’s ignorant to the trouble he’s about to wake up to. It’s far from a feminist film, but he’s clearly not painting his character in the most positive light. The guy’s a cad, albeit a cad who has a change of heart…potentially too late.

As good as Clint is though, this is unquestionably Jessica Walter’s film, in terms of character and performance. She’s absolutely sensational as the clearly and violently disturbed jilted one-night-stand turned bunny-boiling stalker. It’s one of cinema’s greatest ‘crazy psycho’ performances ever, in my opinion. It’s up there with Robert Walker in “Strangers on a Train”, Karl Boehm in “Peeping Tom”, and Anthony Perkins in “Psycho”. I really feel that strongly. Unlike “Fatal Attraction” where it defies belief that anyone would boink Glenn Close when they’re married to Anne Archer, Clint’s character is unmarried here, returning girlfriend Donna Mills is a bit dull, and Jessica Walter is certainly aesthetically pleasing. Walter really goes for broke as this girl loses her shit early in the piece and never finds her faecal matter again. Callous pants man or not, Clint doesn’t deserve this homicidal level of crazy. Aside from the rather bland Mills (there’s a problem when as an audience member you’re far more interested in the ‘bunny boiler’), the supporting cast is pretty good. Clint’s frequent Don Siegel even gives a solid turn in a small role as Murph the bartender (Go to IMDb’s trivia section to read an hilarious/cruel story about Clint’s direction of Siegel. It’s worth it). Even better are John Larch (a mixture of Walter Matthau and Jack Klugman), and a great cameo by the inimitable Clarice Taylor in a funny yet sad bit as Eastwood’s ill-fated cleaning lady. You may remember the late actress from stints on “Sesame Street” and “The Cosby Show”. Kudos too, to the nice low-level lighting by Bruce Surtees (“Dirty Harry”, “The Shootist”, “Sudden Impact”), an aesthetic that would become an Eastwood trademark in recent years. It’s superbly shot.

On the downside, Clint really ought to have pared this down a bit. I’d suggest getting rid of the dated appearance of a bitchy gay character (for a guy who is known to be pro-gay, several of his films tend to lean opposite to that, possibly as a reflection of the times) and also a needless scene at the Monterey Jazz Festival. Also perhaps worthy of excision is the scene where Roberta Flack’s perfectly nice ‘The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face’ plays as Eastwood and Mills basically frolic on the beach. I can see why musically that song appeals to him, but it doesn’t fit lyrically or in any other way, especially when the preceding scene had someone being violently attacked.

Scripted by Jo Heims (who did uncredited story work on “Dirty Harry”) & Dean Riesner (“Coogan’s Bluff”, “Charley Varrick”, “The Enforcer”), this is a much better than average genre pic that could’ve been a great genre pic with some minor adjustments. Clint’s good in the lead, but Jessica Walter is sensational and deserved an Oscar nomination. It’s a shame that there’s been so many lesser imitations and variants through the years, stick with the originator.

Rating: B+