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.
Does he point at someone?: Yes. But only with one hand.
Best Line: "MANDRO ISN'T POGO!"
What a film. On the one side, this is exactly what Caineology is about........on the other, this film is bloody terrible. A very early Oliver Stone film (who appears in a drunken cameo as a victim to...............THE HAND) and a very very, well I'm not quite sure what - dedicated perhaps? - Caine.
The man really throws himself into this one, but never really comes across as anything other than CAINE even when acting the part of John Lansdale, a comic artist (yeah, I know - Caine as a comic artist? Disbelief shattered straight off) who enjoys living the country life but is in marital problems and on the point of separating from his wife and child.
Whilst having a domestic with Mrs Lansdale in the car and gesticulating madly/pointing at her in a rage, an accident happens and means that he suffers the loss of his hand...............THE HAND. Obviously, as an artist, this means the end of his career and forces him to readjust. His wife sticks by him, but its clear that they will end up going their separate ways as they move back into New York during Winter and the old troubles start again alongside her desire for a new life.
But, this ain't no domestic drama, oh no, this is a disembodied hand film and gives us plenty of what we want from a disembodied hand film. i.e. people being menaced by a rubbery device and flailing about pretending to be strangled whilst holding it to their throats. And this film does NOT disappoint on that front!
Caine becomes obsessed with going out on a limb to solve this mystery of his living hand and all manner of insanity follows over the next hour.
To be fair, this film has its good points, but really its not a good film at all..........its just a bit flat. Its a bad film, but not a truly awful one. Entertaining enough, I suppose. Without Caine, this would have been properly shite.
Apparently, Caine was pleased with the success of his previous horror film (Dressed to Kill) and "was interested in making another horror film to earn enough to put a down payment on a new garage he was having built"
And that is why we love you, Michael Caine.
(Also - a point to Stone for showing Caines titular hand before we actually see Caine himself.)
Details:
1 - We should really start with the hand off scene (more on that later).
That impassioned acting is the force of a man knowing he's getting a new garage at the end of this.
2 - Michael Caine Disapproves of your Life.
Disapproval of Life Coaching
Disapproval of yoga
Disapproval of your life choices.
3 - We get Hand PoV. Well, if yer gonna have PoV, may as well go full bore.
4 - New York. Winter. 1981.
Beautiful....and with All That Jazz showing? What more?
5 - Later in the film, Caine takes a teaching position out in California. Comes complete with wonderfully cosy pied-à-terre
Where there is little else to do but drink J&B all night.
6 - The return of Drunken Mike. Did he have lessons in drunken acting or just relive some of those nights out with O'Toole in the 70s, I wonder?
7 - Never mind THE HAND, this film should be subtitled THE HAIR.
8 - Finally, at one point a heartbroken MC takes a moody drive out into the night to get away from his problems whilst cranking a bit of Blondie and staring into the road. Never had Caine pegged as a Blondie fan. Maybe that explains why he went to New York?
Outfit of the film - a few to choose from, but we're partial to a good leather jacket around here at Mount Mickelwhite. Looks like a Lewis Dominator, maybe?
