Saturday, October 15, 2022

Musty TV's Maniacal Movie Countdown - Day 15: The Fan (1981)

Let's continue this week's women-and-the-men-who-terrorize-them theme with today's entry: 1981's The Fan, starring Lauren Bacall and Michael Biehn.

I never bothered to watch this movie in all the years since it first came out because I had always heard it's terrible. And....it kind of is! But it's not so bad that it was worthy of ignoring for decades, mainly because Lauren Bacall is so good in it. She plays, basically, herself, a Hollywood legend who is living in New York, doing theater. As she rehearses for a new musical, she begins to get letters from an obsessive fan who is not at all happy that her assistant keeps intercepting them....

For a movie that's pretty dumb, it sure does have a stellar case. Along with Bacall and Biehn there's James Garner as Bacall's ex-husband, Héctor Elizondo as a detective, and Maureen Stapleton as Bacall's long suffering assistant. Its late 1970's, early '80's in Manhattan aesthetic is enjoyable, and kept reminding me of The Eyes of Laura Mars, (which would make a good double bill). And to top it all off, there's an extensive musical sequence, with songs by Tim Rice and Marvin Hamlisch!

I watched The Fan on the Criterion Channel, where it is part of this month's excellent '80's horror collection.

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