Glasses: No.
Doing an Accent?: No
Accent for whole film?: N/A
Hair: Yes
Does he point at someone?: Yes. Only quickly, only once.
Best Line: "Are you sexually attracted to me?" said with all the passion of a cold cobra.
In spite of Michael Caine regularly taking the money where offered, he really kept to a higher level of slumming (i.e kept to the highest paying cheque) and never really dipped into the soupcon of the Italian film industry around this point in his career, like so many of his fellow actors of this vintage and thus meaning that we missed the chance of seeing him appear in something like an Argento or a Martino movie.
BUT, what Dressed to Kill provides is the closest possible version of what Maurice may have been like had he ended up in a giallo. As this is a purest giallo from that master of aping Argento and Hitchock, Brian De Palma (we like De Palma, here at Caineology, for this exact reason). Chock full of the insanity, violence, trenchcoats and sexual subversions that you expect for yr money when watching one of these.
A frustrated married housewife, bored with her rich life and inattentive husband, confides to her doctor (Caine) that she is sexually frustrated and bored, coming on to him (very professionally rebuted, I must say) and later to a random stranger she meets in a gallery. On the way out of this romantic rendezvous, the poor lady is brutally murdered by the classic giallo killer type - razor, trenchcoat, but no trilby.
The only witness to this murder is a plucky high class prostitute trying to make her way off the street, who sets out to investigate the murder with the womans bereaved son (Guy Picciotto). At the same time, Mr Caine begins receiving threatening phone calls from another patient of his, Bobby, who is undergoing a sex change and is claiming to the murder - having stolen Caines razor for use as the murder weapon. Caine undertakes an investigation of his own to find Bobby and to try prevent any further violence.
Highly stylised, very competent, filmed in classic 80s NY and with all the trashy goodness you could desire from a film like this. Caine does well for his money and gives a very strong performance - if a little subdued. Perhaps the knowledge that this is *gasp* a horror film caused him to hold back a little. Who knows?
This is a film of great set pieces and really deserves more than a single watch to take it all in.
1 - Caine has a special drawer in his office designed for holding his shaving gear? In his office? Theres something deviant about the idea of shaving with a cutthroat razor in the workplace. But then seeing Angie Dickinson being attacked with a Gillette safety razor wouldn't have quite the same impact, I suppose.
2 - Some great faces appear in this film:
SIPOWICZ!
That fellow with the hat, off Friday the 13th 2!
LENNY!
3 - The most unfortunate romantic afternoon in history.
4 - "You got better motivation than I do. YO ASS!!"
5 - Shitty tacked on ending. Or is this the moment when De Palma really decided to show his pure Italo admiration? This is pure Italo madness gold.
We get hugely irregular mental health facilities. Lit for "calming"
Saucy nurses.
An inmates viewing galley
And yet another Psycho shower scene, this time with horrifying footwear.
And a twist after a twist after a twist..........none of which really has much to do with the film.
Outfit of the film: Slim pickings here as its all very non descript.
Suppose its the pale blue shirt and dark overcoat, but he's massively overshadowed by Sipowicz leathers n collar effect, and he full well knows it.
