Movies that are based on plays are often a tough sale. A Few Good Men and Steel Magnolias were able to expand past the dimensions of a stage play yet still tell the same story.
Then, you have movies like Brighton Beach Memoirs or even Fences which you could tell were trying too hard to keep themselves faithful to the source material. Scenes go on too long and the feeling of claustrophobia is there.
That might have worked in a movie like Deathtrap if it had been necessary. The movie is almost two hours long, a good half hour longer than it should be. Based on a play by Ira Levin and directed by Sidney Lumet, it could’ve been a good little thriller. But the twist happens early and then it’s just a second half of Michael Caine and Christopher Reeve trying to act suspicious of each other.
Caine plays Sidney Bruhl, a playwright who has just had his latest play premiere and flop. He returns to his home on Long Island with his wife, Myra (Dyan Cannon), who is rich and wealthy. It should be noted that in the play, Myra was portrayed by Marian Seldes, a well-regarded five-time Tony nominee. Cannon herself started out on Broadway but she became more famous for roles in movies and on TV. Sometimes, actors can’t work too well in one medium as the other. Look at Jack Lemmon in Kenneth Branagh’s Hamlet.
That’s the case here. It also should be a fault of Lumet as director and Jay Presson Allen as script writer who makes Cannon’s performance so hard to sit through. She seems to constantly be delivering dialogue that should have been better shown in the plot. I also think the dialogue is to set up the twist.
Now SPOILER ALERT!! Sidney arranges a meeting with a student Clifford Anderson (Reeve) who has written a manuscript that he wants some help on from Sidney. But Sidney eventually appears to strangle Clifford to death with some chains and gets rid of the body as it begins to rain outside. Later at night as Sidney tries to convince Myra to conspire with him to use the manuscript as his own, Clifford bursts through the windows and chases Myra around after he appears to beat Sidney.
Myra dies of a heart attack. But, it’s all been a ruse. Sidney and Clifford are secretly in a relationship and this has been their way to make it look like Myra has died so Sidney can inherit her estate. Immediately, this could have been a good set-up for a thriller. But if you’ve seen Alfred Hitchcock’s Rope, you know that there’s still a lot longer in the movie before anything happens.
Sidney and Clifford become suspicious of each other as the rest of the movie is just of them being leery of each other. At the same time, a neighbor Helga Ten Dorp (Irene Worth) keeps popping in. Again, this might have worked in a play but the character seems to become the Jimmy Stewart character from Rope as she suspects something is wrong and doesn’t do anything until the end.
At least Hitchcock kept Rope at about 83 minutes with credits. Caine and Reeve seem like they needed a little more rehearsing and prepping for their roles. They do have a lot of good chemistry. But maybe that’s the problem. There needs to be a love-hate in their performance like what Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner brought in The War of the Roses.
Of course, Caine and Reeve were famously going to reunite with Turner for Switching Channels, a version of The Front Page replacing print newspapers with cable news. But Caine had to do reshoots for Jaws: The Revenge leading for him to miss that movie as well as receiving his first Oscar for Hannah and Her Sisters. Reeve would later act as a mediator between Turner and Burt Reynolds who were constantly fighting on the set, which I think would’ve made a better idea for both that movie and this one.
Now, the movie got a lot of critical acclaim when it was released in 1982. However, Cannon’s performance got her a nomination for a Golden Raspberry. And the surprise scene where Caine and Reeve share a kiss had a negative impact. The movie only made $19 million at the box office and Reeve said the kiss cost the movie an additional $10 million. People reportedly booed and jeered when they saw the kiss and someone screamed out “No, Superman, don’t do it!” at a screening.
At this time, Reeve was trying to shove off the Man of Steel character that had burst him onto the mainstream A-list. For what it’s worth, Reeve does show he has some range. I mean he studied at The Julliard under Oscar-winning actor John Houseman.
It’s a shame in this world where so many respected actors are able to jump back and forth between the comic-book superhero and action movies and more serious movies with such an ease. I remember when I heard Christian Bale was going to be Batman, I knew it would be good. And hearing Alfred Molina was going to play Dr. Octavius, I was excited.
Part of the problem is that many people said that Caine had already made this movie with Sleuth a decade earlier. And did Levin himself get inspired by that movie?
What do you think? Please comment.
Zane Says 