October 14, 2022
Usually, when I’m getting ready to write about a certain topic, the list of films to cover comes pretty naturally. Something like high-school comedies, musician biopics, mom movies – pretty straightforward, right? For a while now, I’ve had the topic of “film noir” on my list of topics, but I couldn’t quite figure out how to write about it. I thought about trying to cover it after falling in love with last year’s neo-noir thriller Nightmare Alley, one of my ten favorite movies of 2021. Then I started thinking about psychological thrillers, especially with the recent release of Don’t Worry Darling, a film I covered in my last post here. I was spinning round and round about how to find the edge of the topic because once you start thinking about thrillers, the net can be quite wide when you are trying to hone in on the films to consider. So I decided to give myself some ground rules for this week’s topic.
Thrillers come in all shapes and sizes, with subcategories that I will cover. But here is what is off-limits (for now). First off, we’re not talking about horror. If it’s the ghost-face killer from Scream or Michael Myers, that’s not in scope here. I covered my favorite scary movies last year here. Those aren’t really thrillers – just blood and gore. Another genre that I love won’t be writing about this week is the “whodunnit mystery” – think of your classic Agatha Christie story, or Knives Out. Not a lot of suspense or twists and turns – just a question of who is the killer, maybe with a little comedy thrown in. I’m also going to avoid the classic serial killer story, although one of my favorite movies of all time (David Fincher’s Zodiac) would most certainly qualify as a thriller.
The themes of the films I’m going to cover are going to largely fit into the category of keeping you guessing, keeping you on edge, maybe a little scary (but without horror-movie jump scares), and perhaps a twist ending that you didn’t see coming. At the risk of being repetitive, I won’t retread some films that I’ve covered before – for example: Zodiac, Memento, Mulholland Drive, and Shutter Island. These are all outstanding thrillers – mostly in the psychological thriller subgenre. You can read my thoughts on those movies via my film index here.
OK, enough preamble – let’s jump in by going back in time to the glory days of Hollywood.
The Classics
Thriller movies go back for decades – don’t worry, I’m not going to bore you with an extensive review of the history of cinema. But I thought I would mention two films from the 1940s that still hold up really well and are considered all-time classics. The first is Rebecca, the 1940 feature film directed by Alfred Hitchcock, based on a novel from a few years earlier. The story starts out as a whirlwind romance between a wealthy widower (Laurence Olivier) and a young woman (Joan Fontaine) he meets while on holiday. After quickly marrying, she moves into his home (Manderlay, because back then all rich people named their mansions) and meets Mrs. Danvers, the housekeeper who was devoted to Rebecca, the original matriarch of Manderlay. What follows is a game of psychological torture and the newlywed tries to fit into her new surroundings while the memory of Rebecca still haunts Manderlay (not literally – this isn’t a ghost story). You could use a certain word to describe what Mrs. Danvers does to Fontaine’s character, but that word wasn’t in our common lexicon yet. Nope, the term would come into use four years later with our next film.
For very unfortunate reasons, the word “gaslighting” has become very common in our society the last several years, as people question if what they are reading or watching is really happening. Many people may not realize that the term originated with the 1944 film Gaslight, starring Ingrid Bergman in an Oscar-winning role. She plays a young woman whose new husband starts to play tricks on her, leading her to question if she is losing her mind. The motivations behind his actions are a key part of the story, so I don’t want to spoil it, but suffice it to say, Bergman’s transformation throughout the film is the real highlight.
Also, Gaslight was the debut picture of 19 year-old Angela Lansbury, who is fantastic as the couple’s maid. Side note: In researching this picture a few days before Lansbury passed away this week at the age of 96, I looked at her impressive filmography and discovered she has a cameo in the upcoming Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, which will likely be her last film credit. God bless her. One last note – the adoption of the word “gaslight” into our lexicon over the years is funny because it’s not used in that way during the movie. You don’t hear Bergman scream “You’re gaslighting me!” No, the use of the word in the name of the film is clever, but pretty routine. The only comparison I can think of in our recent history is the adoption of the suffix “gate” to any controversy following the Watergate scandal in 1972. Truly amazing.
A Tribute To The Classics That Is Now A Classic
When I first considered writing about film noir, I immediately thought about the glory days of that era – the 1940s and Humphrey Bogart. As much as I love a good suspense movie, I just never got into Bogart’s pictures. I respect the work and the actor, I just have a hard time connecting to some of those films. That being said, 25 years ago we saw a wonderful movie set in the glory days of Hollywood as a tribute to noir film. L.A. Confidential takes place in the early 1950s and tells intertwining stories about police corruption, fame, and organized crime in La La Land. Leading the cast is Russell Crowe (before he became super famous), Guy Pearce (before he would make me a big fan in Memento) and Kevin Spacey (before he…. well, you know the rest of that story).
They play three different types of officers – the tough guy willing to break the rules to put criminals away (Crowe), the straight-laced teacher’s pet who won’t think twice about ratting out a fellow officer (Pearce) and a dirtbag on the take selling stories to a gossip rag (Spacey). Despite my feelings about Spacey off the screen, it doesn’t distract from the enjoyment of watching L.A. Confidential, which also features great supporting roles from Danny DeVito, James Cromwell, and Kim Bassinger, who won an Oscar for her performance. Director Curtis Hanson (who won an Oscar for co-writing the screenplay) brings this era of Los Angeles to life on the big screen with the locations, the costumes, and the music of the time. The story features a few twists and turns as we watch our main characters try to unpack a mystery of corruption that might lead to the highest levels of law enforcement. It’s a very fun story – but one that is off the record, on the QT, and very hush-hush.
The Comedic Thrillers
Twenty years later, Russell Crowe was back in a movie taking place…well, twenty years later, this time in The Nice Guys. I might be cheating here a little bit as this one could be closer to an action film than a thriller, but it still has some suspenseful moments. The important part about this movie is that it is actually funny. Not in a laugh out loud way, but in a smart comedy way. Crowe partners up with Ryan Gosling as two bumbling private investigators trying to find a missing girl. Their methods are not the greatest (or the smartest), but the joy is watching these two talented actors play off of each other so well. The characters do not like each other, but you can tell that Crowe and Gosling had fun making this movie. Both of those factors make their interactions on screen work very well.
You know what else works? The 1970s vibe (and chef’s kiss costumes) that writer-director Shane Black brought to the movie. Much like most films of this genre, we have many subplots – government corruption, corporate misconduct, the adult film industry, and common criminals. You might see the plot resolution coming from a mile away, but there are enough decent twists and turns to make this a fun watch. Plus, it’s rare to make a thriller movie comedic – it takes a good script and the perfect lead actors. Bonus points for The Nice Guys – it’s a L.A. Confidential reunion for Crowe and Kim Bassinger, who has a supporting role in the film.
Master of the Twist Ending
I’ve probably covered this thought somewhere in the thousands of words I’ve written, but it makes me wonder what would happen if a film like The Sixth Sense was released in the age of social media. In 1999 however, people saw movies based on two factors alone – a commercial with the trailer which might spark some interest and word of mouth. At that time, if someone said, “You HAVE to see this movie – trust me,” you would take their word for it. Now, if someone says that, they have to add, “And don’t read anything about it online, because it will spoil it.” Kind of like I did with The Barbarian a few weeks ago.
One of the downsides if you know there is a twist coming is that you are always waiting for it and speculating what it might be. That’s the great part about The Sixth Sense, director M. Night Shyamalan’s breakout hit, which achieved six Oscar nominations and made over $600 million worldwide. The first time you see it, you had no idea a surprise was coming. We begin watching poor Cole, a 9 year-old boy tortured with the curse of seeing dead people, and his psychologist Malcolm trying to help him. The dynamic between Haley Joel Osment and Bruce Willis was fantastic during the picture, and Toni Collette also delivers a wonderful performance as Cole’s mom, as I covered in my Best Movie Moms post here.
What I love about this thriller is that there are just enough jump scares to keep you on your toes, it doesn’t have any extreme gross-out scenes and it is a classic rewatchable. Which brings up an interesting point – can you enjoy a movie with a twist ending on rewatch, knowing what is coming? Absolutely. When I rewatch something like The Sixth Sense or The Usual Suspects (a future Comfort Movie selection), I watch it not only for the story, but how the director and screenwriter kept the mystery going throughout the picture. I also look for little clues that they put in the film to see how they pay off in the end. When you see the secret revealed at the end of The Sixth Sense and we flash back to earlier scenes in the movie, one word comes to mind: Masterpiece.
Love Hurts
OK, we’ve danced around it long enough – we have to talk about it. That’s right – next up is the erotic thriller. With countless examples of how this can go horribly wrong (remember Madonna and Willem Dafoe in Body of Evidence?), there are actually some good stories that mix murder, suspense, and a steamy love story. First up is the 1992 bonkers film Basic Instinct, which features Michael Douglas and Sharon Stone playing cat and mouse (among other physical activities) as a detective investigating a murder and the main suspect in the crime. This movie is bonkers for a few reasons. First off, it’s campy fun. Let’s just be honest. Stone is delightful as she ties Douglas into a pretzel playing games with his head. Douglas plays (probably) the dumbest cop to ever live, which brings me to my other point as to why Basic Instinct is so bonkers. The plot is batshit crazy with too many coincidences to count, especially the connection between Stone’s character and the police psychologist, played by Jeanne Tripplehorn. Two lasting points from Basic Instinct – first, we never looked at icepicks the same way again; and second, who would have guessed that Newman from Seinfeld (Wayne Knight) would be part of the most famous (or infamous?) police interrogation scene in cinematic history. Basic Instinct is the ultimate 1990s popcorn movie, continuing a fun trend of erotic thrillers we saw in the 1980s, which brings us to our next film.
As a child of the 1980s, there were certain movies that seemed to be on a constant loop on HBO when I was a kid. Quick sidebar: My wife and I recently went to see Grease on the big screen and despite not having seen it in probably twenty years, I was amazed how many lines of dialogue I remembered a split-second before they were said by the actors. I mean, these were probably tucked in the deepest recessed corners of my brain, yet they are there. The power of the 1980s latchkey kid with cable television. Oh, and Grease as a movie? Still quite the good time!
I had a similar reaction when I recently rewatched Jagged Edge, a 1985 courtroom / erotic thriller with Jeff Bridges and Glenn Close that I saw countless times on cable. He plays a husband accused of murdering his wife and she is the attorney he hires to defend him. As she gets to know him, she starts to fall for him, not quite knowing if he is guilty or not. The story holds up pretty well (recognizing it was made in the 1980s, so excuse some of the nuances of that era in movies) and the two leads are excellent in their roles, as well as Peter Coyote as a devilish district attorney and the great Robert Loggia (Oscar-nominated for this role) as the wisecracking investigator.
This was probably the peak of Close’s work, coming on the heels of her terrific turns in The Big Chill and The Natural. She does a very effective job of juggling the conflict of her head and her heart as she falls for her client. One theme that we see in so many of these movies is how our protagonist just can’t help falling in love with a dangerous person. And, just like Douglas in Basic Instinct, it’s the same with Close in Jagged Edge. It’s just a shame for two such wonderful people. If only they could have found each other…..Oh, wait…..
You know you have a hit on your hands when your movie is described as the movie that scared the shit out of every married man in America. But, that’s where we were in 1987. That year Michael Douglas starred in two monster hits – Wall Street, for which he would win the Oscar, and Fatal Attraction, for which he would win the award for dumbest husband alive. He plays an attorney with a nice career and family but makes the fateful decision to have a one-night stand with Glenn Close’s character while his wife is out of town. To say things escalate from there would be an understatement. Close wants more from his character (“I’m not going to be ignored, Dan!”) and ratchets up the tension, threats, and (pet animal) body count (poor Bunny) as she descends into madness. This continued Close’s hot streak and is an incredible performance when you compare it to her other roles in the 1980s. Alas, things didn’t work out for the couple, which is usually the case with the erotic thriller.
Homage to the Greats
They say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Some directors have made a career out of ripping off other great filmmakers or classic movies. Director Brian De Palma has made some wonderful pictures over the last fifty years, in addition to a handful of disasters. In doing so, he has been completely transparent about his influences and how he uses them to pay tribute to work he admires. He made his name as a director with the 1976 adaptation of Stephen King’s novel Carrie, a film that still holds up (in case you are looking for a campy horror movie to watch this Halloween season). Over the years, he showed his affection with Alfred Hitchcock as Rear Window, Vertigo and Psycho were heavy influences on Dressed to Kill and Body Double, two erotic thrillers that are the height of 1980s campy thriller fun, even if they don’t hold up very well for outdated themes or plot holes you could drive a truck through.
As I look at De Palma’s many films, the thriller that I love the most is 1981’s Blow Out, starring John Travolta (at the height of his fame) as an audio engineer who thinks he witnesses a murder. His day job involves creating sound effects for movies and while out recording some nature sounds one night, he sees a car accident in which the driver is killed and his recording might be evidence of a crime. He rescues a woman from the wreckage and she tries to help him uncover the mystery. Now, one of De Palma’s faults is that he doesn’t always bring out the best in his actors. Don’t get me wrong – Travolta is phenomenal, as is John Lithgow in an early role as one of the villains. The female lead is played by Nancy Allen, who De Palma became involved with after they met filming Carrie, and she is just not that great. She also dragged down Dressed to Kill a little bit, in another supporting role. Another surprise for me was Dennis Franz, who plays a photographer in Blow Out, and was just average. It was a far cry from the outstanding work we would see with him a decade later on NYPD Blue. That being said – the story, De Palma’s unique filming techniques, and Travolta’s performance make this a great thriller that bridges the 1970s to 1980s vibe perfectly.
The Paranoid Thriller
When I started the Comfort Movies series, an easy early choice was All the President’s Men, a film I have seen countless times. The other night, I was flipping around the cable channels and saw that it was running on Turner Classic Movies as part of a tribute to director Alan Pakula’s “paranoid thriller” trilogy. Of course I got sucked in and watched the final hour – you can’t give up on that film when you know the sequence with Bradlee, Woodward, and Bernstein on Bradlee’s front lawn is coming. Now the movies TCM showed that night are not really a trilogy (in the conventional sense), but that favorite of mine, along with Klute and The Parallax View comprised a feeling that was sweeping Hollywood in the 1970s. After Watergate and the government’s lies about the Vietnam War were exposed, people’s trust in public institutions eroded pretty quickly. This situation has only gotten worse over the last fifty years to the point where we now don’t trust the media along with our government institutions and social media has galvanized people to take matters into their own hands – online and in person. But I digress.
There were other films that conveyed this sense of “who can you trust” and “is someone watching or listening to me” during the 1970s. Marathon Man, featuring Dustin Hoffman in an outstanding performance was another example of rogue government agents silencing a common man who stumbles into a conspiracy. One of my favorites from this era is The Conversation, the brilliant movie directed by Francis Ford Coppola in between the two Godfather films. Quick note on this point: In 1974, Coppola released The Conversation in the spring and it went on to win the Palme d’Or (Best Picture equivalent) at the Cannes Film Festival. Later that year, he had The Godfather Part II, which would win him Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Adapted Screenplay at the Oscars. He was also nominated for Best Original Screenplay for The Conversation, but lost that Oscar to Chinatown. Other than Steven Soderbergh in 2000, I can’t think of a director who had such an impressive year in film. Ok, let’s get back on track.
In The Conversation, Gene Hackman plays a surveillance expert who records a conversation among two people in a crowded square from multiple vantage points. While he maintains to his colleagues that he is “just doing the job he was hired for,” he continues to listen to the recording, piecing together missing pieces created by audio problems. He can’t shake the feeling that there is something sinister being planned by the couple, but he can’t quite piece it together. If that sounds a lot like Blow Out, it’s because De Palma’s movie was heavily influenced by The Conversation and both films were influenced by a 1966 British picture Blowup. Art imitating art never ends.
Hackman is phenomenal in this role, and while there are some big names in the movie (Harrison Ford before Star Wars, John Cazale, and Robert Duvall in a small role), this is Hackman’s movie. What I love most about him is what he does with his characters when they are not speaking. Yes, the dialogue delivery is always great, but he can convey every emotion under the sun with just his facial expressions and they are all on display in The Conversation, especially when you watch him listening to the recordings. Speaking of which, the sound design is incredible in this film, especially for 1974 standards. The final sequence with Hackman is something to behold and one that you may think about next time you see a Facebook ad for something you just had a conversation about. Sorry, maybe I am a little paranoid after writing about this brilliant film.
That’s all for this week. I hope you enjoyed my look at some excellent thrillers and found some to add to your list. I’ll be off next week and back the following week with something a little different. Thanks for reading and if you’d like to subscribe to be notified of future posts, you can subscribe here.