Romancefest 14: Body Heat

Like most film fans, I went through both a screenwriting phase and a film noir phase. During both of these phases, the title BODY HEAT kept popping up. It was a great screenplay, it was a modern example of film noir. Still, I never got around to seeing it.

I did see DOUBLE INDEMNITY a few times, though, which BODY HEAT is largely inspired by.

BODY HEAT, written and directed by the great Lawrence Kasdan, stars William Hurt as somewhat sleazy lawyer Ned Racine and Kathleen Turner as Matty Walker, sultry wife of a Florida millionaire (Richard Crenna).

The two kick off an affair that is largely driven by lust and what appears to be great sexual chemistry, only to eventually hit on the idea of knocking off the annoying husband who seems to be in the way, run off together, and get a fortune in the process.

The most intriguing passages of the film involve the attempts by Racine to keep his crime a secret after it has happened -- his DA buddy (Ted Danson) and his cop buddy (JA Preston) seem to suspect him, so it's a careful game of cat and mouse for a while, with Turner's character annoyingly and menacingly not being quite as discreet as Racine would like.

Rounding out the cast as an expert in explosives is a young Mickey Rourke, already brimming with the energy he was later to become famous for.

The movie is a master of setting -- there are constant references to how hot it is outside, and almost every scene includes a fan, an air conditioner, or visibly uncomfortable, sweating actors. Also, the interior scenes usually have bright sunlight intruding from windows, rendering the rest of the interior dark. This is contrasted against the "heat" of the love affair between Hurt and Turner's characters, which was clearly the inspiration for a lot of films, ranging from almost every direct to video sex thriller to popular hits like BASIC INSTINCT.

It was interesting to watch this one right after SPLENDOR IN THE GRASS, because both of them seem to clearly be about the danger of lust, not love. Sure, the word "love" is uttered a few times in this movie, but you don't really buy that either character really means it. Same thing with SPLENDOR -- without the need to bone, the couple in that movie wouldn't have had much in common.