Directed by Edward Bianchi
Written by Priscilla Chapman and John Hartwell
Based on the book by Bob Randall
Starring Lauren Bacall, Michael Biehn, James Garner and Maureen Stapleton
USA, 1981
Michael Biehn has been one of my favorite actors ever since I first saw him in THE TERMINATOR, but although I’m always happy whenever he pops up in stuff I never really sought out any of his more obscure work. As a result, I’ve mostly seen him in hero or antihero roles, usually in sci-fi or action movies. So, you can imagine how excited I was to check this movie out, where young pre-Kyle Reese Michael Biehn plays a psychotic stalker.
Lauren Bacall plays the stalked, a divorced Hollywood actress whose screen career has dried up. She’s turned to Broadway to make her come back. She’s still in love with (and on friendly terms with) her ex-husband (James Garner) who is in town developing his next movie. Her other closest friend is her long-time assistant (Maureen Stapleton) whose tasks include dealing with the fan mail.
That’s where Michael Biehn comes in – he’s Bacall’s number one fan, but his fan letters to her have been getting increasingly creepy. Biehn lives a slightly cleaned up version of a Travis Bickle life, endlessly writing fan letters alone in his apartment and stalking the streets of New York in his spare time.
It isn’t long before things escalate and Biehn moves from obsession to actually entering Bacall’s life, through violent acts and break-ins.
The movie doesn’t quite live up to the promise of its early scenes, but it is far from the turkey that most critics would have you believe. For most of its run time it seemed like a forgotten gem, only sort of losing its footing towards the end as Bacall’s Broadway comeback is played against Biehn’s final attack, more so because of the way the song and dance is treated than the way the suspense story is resolved.
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