Play Misty For Me (1971, Clint Eastwood)

This is an interesting little movie. Pre-Fatal Attraction, Clint Eastwood's directorial debut Play Misty For Me is widely known as the golden standard of the "screechy female stalker" subgenre. Clint-- in a cool performance transported directly from his Western work with only a change in wardrobe to denote his shift to disc jockey-- plays a radio personality admired by a young lady who calls and requests jazz standard "Misty". When a "chance" meeting at his local watering hole ends in him drunkenly bedding this superfan, things take a turn for the worst-- his admirer is clingy, and screechy, and kill....y.

This isn't a bad movie. It's one that shows its age, mind you-- just look at the black people, all colorfully dressed, jive-talkin' their way through the proceedings-- but it's not bad. Jessica Walter plays Clint's stalker, and she's quite good. Modern audiences will forever know her as "Arrested Development" matriarch Lucille Bluth, and there is very little of Lucille in Evelyn, save for the potency of that scream. (Walter has a fantastic screen scream-- it's full-bodied, hoarse, and piercing.) Walter's probably the best thing about the film, in an admittedly showy role-- there's one scene near the end where she appears in a place that we least expect her to, and it's a moment so pregnant with dread and suspense it's unfortunate that the remainder of the film couldn't live up to its promise.

There's a decent undercurrent of dread to this picture. It's important for a film of this nature to maintain that uneasy feeling, and Misty manages to eke by. This is mostly Walter's doing-- her increasingly unhinged behavior heightens this sort of "anything could happen" feeling-- but Eastwood acquits himself adequately. He's quizzical and reactionary in front of the camera, and appropriately confident behind it. It's kind of unfortunate that the film weaves its way to such an anticlimactic close. I'm not gonna spoil it, but the final scene of this film is such an astonishingly "that's it?" moment that it's hard to stomach. The film starts with a bang, then weaves its way uneasily to a whimper.

But Play Misty For Me is decent. There's some decent performances, some decent plot points, some decent camera work. Only Walter elevates herself above "decent" by playing one of the screen's great feminine ghouls-- the rest of the movie would be done better the next decade by Fatal Attraction. Misty gives it a good go, though.

Rating: *** (out of five)