Blu-Ray Review: ‘DRESSED TO KILL’

I think it is safe to say that Brian De Palma has always been hit or miss for everyone. Often written off as a director that cribbed his style from Hitchcock, De Palma still benefited from mainstream audiences with his films like Sisters and Carrie. 1980’s Dressed to Kill was a film I saw more than a decade ago and kind of wrote it off. I previously found the beginning to be a bore in its subtle scenes and its racy scenes to be too exploitative and not very provocative. As a whole, the film always was a mess full of great ideas that never was executed very well. Since it has been a good amount of time since seeing this film and I am the matured *cough, ahem* film watcher/reviewer/nerd than I was a decade ago, maybe my opinion has changed.

The Movie

Dressed to Kill stars Angie Dickinson as Kate Miller, a middle aged married woman who is essentially going through a midlife crisis with her sexuality. Through her psychiatrist Dr. Elliott (Michael Caine), Kate tests and questions her ability to still attract the opposite sex while still maintaining her motherhood & companionship. All of these questions are answered when she visits an art gallery and is playfully but indirectly propositioned by a man who flirts with her across the room and throughout the gallery. Soon after a quick fling with the man, Kate is brutally murdered by a woman with a straight razor in an elevator. A young prostitute, Liz (Nancy Allen), sees a glimpse of the killer when she tries to catch the same elevator. Unfortunately for her, she picks up the straight razor as proof which makes a detective (Dennis Franz) believe that Liz might be the prime suspect of this murder. Liz must prove her innocence and with the help of Kate’s genius son, Peter (Keith Gordon), they both band together to try to catch this diabolical killer before she strikes again.

Dressed to Kill came under some heat when it was initially released due to its overly sexual delivery and content. The film was threatened with an X rating until De Palma made some cuts to his opening shower sequence and the murder scene, as well as some dialogue in the final act with Allen & Caine. Not only that but De Palma was attacked by the press and women rights organizations calling him misogynistic. In watching the film again, I still stand by my first instinct in that De Palma has some great ideas that just don’t stitch together. There are moments of genius in the film as some sequences are tense and keep you on edge with trying to see who is going to survive. However, to me, these seem like great set pieces that are ultimately loosely constructed with filler.

The performances by Dickinson, Caine, Allen & Gordon are also some of the highlights of the film. With Dickinson coming of her popular TV series, Police Woman, she was put into a unique position that could have proved disastrous. Due to her well grounded performance, this was not the case. Nancy Allen’s character is easily relatable and Gordon’s Peter is a character that is very welcome to the genre and geeks alike.

While the ending has no doubt lost its potency in unpredictability, it is still a doozy of an ending. Unfortunately, I’m not a huge fan of the ending scene as I think it relies too much on another successful ending from De Palma – the film I won’t mention to be sure not to spoil it for you.

The Presentation

20th Century Fox and MGM present De Palma’s Dressed to Kill on Blu-Ray in Unrated form – essentially the European/X Rated cut. While there is film grain through this presentation, it is only to be expected. I prefer film grain over DNR anyday. From what I can tell there is not a lot of digital restoration to the transfer. Contrast levels seem a little on the dark side especially during the end sequence (the shoes on the floor, that’s all I’ll say). I also noticed that in a scene where Peter is capturing the average time a patient is coming out of Dr. Elliott’s office (right around the 52 minute mark), the print seems to have a dark corner on the right hand side. This seems to be more of an issue with the print and not the transfer.

The English 5.1 DTS-HD Audio modifies the original Mono soundtrack with great care. This modern interpretation of the mono soundtrack sounds good and not over produced. All the special features are carried over from the 2001 Special Edition release previously put out by MGM. These include:

• “The Making of a Thriller” Full-Length Documentary including interviews with Brian De Palma, Angie Dickinson, Nancy Allen and Dennis Franz
• “Slashing Dressed to Kill” Featurette
• “Dressed to Kill: An Appreciation by Keith Gordon” Featurette
• “Comparison of the Unrated, R-rated, and Network Versions” Featurette
• Animated Photo Gallery
• Theatrical Trailer

These special features can be accessed via popup menu as there is no main menu. When you first pop in the disc, it goes straight to the film. All the above special features are featured in 4:3 SD (as they were from the 2001 Special Edition) with the exception of the Original Theatrical Trailer which is presented in 16:9 HD.

Another thing to note, the Special Edition DVD carried the Unrated (X) version and the R-Rated Version. The Blu-Ray doesn’t give the R-Rated Version as an option.

Overall

While I’m not the hugest fan of the film, the fans are out there. If you own the 2001 Special Edition already and are a fan of the film, since the same special features are on this release, it is worth upgrade as the Blu-Ray is going for around $17 on Amazon. Recommended

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