Make him Sweat By Christina Harlin, your Fearless Young Orphan Body Heat (1981) Directed by Lawrence Kasdan My thanks to my friend, elusively known as the Mysterious Stranger, a fellow fan of film noir who reminded me of this excellent neo-noir classic, plus a few others we’ll be looking at in the weeks to come. How many of y’all were around in 1981, when this little beauty was released? It caused quite a stir and made Kathleen Turner a sex goddess, and to my recollection, spawned a revival of the style that lasted for years. Body Heat is such classic film noir material that it almost serves as a specially crafted “example,” in addition to being a rather entertaining movie in itself. I’ll summarize the plot and, if you haven’t seen it or don’t remember it, you’ll be surprised at how archetypal it all sounds. Ned Racine (William Hurt) is a sleazy lawyer in Florida – he’s not a stupid man but he’s careless and his law practice shows it. He’s been reprimanded by the court for mistakes. He doesn’t like his clients. He’s full of crap, basically. Also, he likes the ladies. There’s a heat wave going on and crime is up, says Ned’s cop friend. The heat makes people crazy. Ned tries his charms on a fine, classy specimen he meets at an outdoor concert. This is Matty Walker (Kathleen Turner). She’s rich and manicured and probably far out of his league, yet they sense a likeness in each other. Matty is married, but her husband is out of town. This seems like a nice arrangement. Ned pursues, Matty withdraws, and in making herself unavailable, makes herself irresistible. In one of the films famous scenes Ned actually breaks down a door to get at her, and from then on out, they are entangled both physically and mentally. Their relationship is very hot and we see a lot of it. This is one of the differences between film noir and neo noir: the skin shows. My old-fashioned tastes normally prefer a bit of subtlety when it comes to bedroom matters in films, but I have to admit that here, the acrobatics are handled well because Matty and Ned have real chemistry and are able to laugh at themselves, so we can believe they are indeed attracted to each other. She hates her husband, of course. She hates being the neglected trophy wife of such a cold, mean man. She says things that make them both think: if only Edmund would die, then all that money would be Matty’s. Of course she’s only talking, she would never suggest “Hahaha we should kill my husband! Hahaha just kidding!” that Ned actually help her kill the man, oh heavens no, except that somewhere over the course of the steaming nights the idea takes solid form and then Ned realizes he is making plans. He would do anything for this woman to be his, and even though she denies that she needs it, the money has somehow become part of the deal. The plan to kill her husband without raising suspicion is complicated but possible – except that Ned realizes after the deed is done that Matty has been making a few extra plans. Seems that her husband’s money was going to be evenly divided between her and a niece, and Matty didn’t much want to share. She’s been futzing with his Will and claims that Ned was the attorney who helped her. Hey, wait! And then there are missing pieces of evidence. And then there are the matters of a bomb, a mysterious blonde, and a series of anonymous phone calls that destroy Ned’s alibi. It’s funny that these couples, after doing somebody in, never quite get back that passion they so desperately clung to prior to the death. People might take a lesson from this. Part of the body heat comes from forbidding it, and once the obstacle is destroyed, a lot of that friction disappears. Particularly when someone is lying . The Scorecard: Our Hero: Ned Racine is a lousy lawyer, because he’s lazy and cynical. Once he gets an eyeful of Matty Walker, he’s a man obsessed, to the point where he’d lie, steal or kill to be with her. The one who needs killing is her husband Edmund (Richard Crenna, by the way). Ned is not clueless about the evil of his actions, but he’s willing anyway, and it’s not as if Edmund is a saint. Problem is, once Edmund is out of the picture, Ned starts learning things about Matty that he wished he’d known before he killed for her. His Achilles Heel is desire, helped out by a very loose definition of morality. 10/10 As Played by: William Hurt. He doesn’t really hit you across the face with magnetism, but Hurt was always a good everyman star and a nuanced performer, and he has a sharp, wry sense of humor. He is never afraid of not looking handsome, he doesn’t mind being unglamorous or appearing stupid, and this makes him utterly believable as Matty’s foil in this film. 10/10 Femme Fatale: Matty Walker, the ridiculously hot, sophisticated trophy wife of a rich, mean man. She wants her husband dead, she wants all of his money, and she claims she wants a life with Ned Racine. But we know from the beginning that she’s also toying with other ideas; there is something far too calculated about the way she reels in Ned Racine. Can we believe anything she tells us? You’ll never know. 10/10 As Played by: Kathleen Turner. She was always known for her smoky voice and her natural beauty, both traits that suit Matty Walker to a tee, but she can also play it very sweet, funny and innocent, which makes matters even more complicated. It’s a very good performance and no small wonder that it propelled her to superstardom. 10/10 The mastermind: That would be Matty again. It’s pretty clear what she wants out of the deal – a dead husband and a buttload of money. But what is she willing to sacrifice in order to get it? How much is she going to risk? She is closed off to us because we see this story from Ned’s viewpoint only. We’ll never understand any more than he does. 10/10 As Played by: Kathleen Turner, pulling in the same excellent score. 10/10 The location: Florida in the middle of a stifling heat wave. Much of the film takes place at night, in Matty’s dimly lit mansion with the wind chimes tinkling in the hot wind. The daylight scenes are saturated with sweaty faces and glaring sunlight. A great movie to watch in the dead of winter, when you’re bones are cold. It’s a gorgeous film, too, looking like it’s made out of butter and whiskey and alligator skin. 10/10 The crime/frame: Matty Walker and Ned Racine plot to kill her husband and take all that man’s money for themselves, so they can be together. It’s one of the oldest and best noir plots in existence. The problem I have with the crime is twofold: first, that once the murder is committed, clues seem to begin dropping into Ned’s lap with alarming regularity, which does not feel natural. He just has too many moments of convenient coincidental meetings. Secondly, eventually Ned figures out the thrust of the real crime all by himself and with something like extrasensory perception. He comes out with an almost outlandish explanation which, nevertheless, turns out to be exactly right. If the rest of the film weren’t so flawless, I wouldn’t complain, but this does feel like sort of a misstep. I do wonder if we couldn’t have been told the truth without having Ned’s exposition. 7/10 The mood: Heat and suspicion. The heat wave, in fact, makes up for the lack of black-and-white film, which adds its own kind of mood to these bleak tales. A movie about a heat wave just needs to be in color, that’s all. And as for the suspicion? I’ll tell you something: we never trust Matty, even when Ned is so deep in the lust pit that he can’t see straight, or maybe because of that. There is some notion that the pair of them might make it out of this all right, because Matty really does seem to care for Ned. She really does. She really does. 10/10 The sex factor: The sex between Matty and Ned is obvious, well-described when it can’t be shown, and then usually shown anyway. But believe it or not, it’s handled with a lot of class. There’s probably a whole generation of kids who were conceived after their parents saw this film. The reason it works is because the chemistry between the stars is like a sweaty inferno. 10/10 Overall Noir Scoire: 97% 1950s censors would probably cut this tender scene. .