Dressed To Kill (1980) – Film Review

Director: Brian De Palma
Cast: Michael Caine, Angie Dickinson, Nancy Allen
Certificate: 18

By Sarah Morgan

Brian De Palma loves Alfred Hitchcock’s work, and he’s never been afraid to show it.

Rear Window inspired his 1984 neo-noir Body Double, and the basis for 1976’s Obsession was Vertigo. But perhaps his most obvious homage to the Master of Suspense is 1980’s Dressed to Kill.

It’s a direct tribute to Psycho; the female lead is bumped off early on, while there’s a heap of exposition from a psychiatrist at the end, explaining the killer’s motivations and supposed condition. There are plenty of other ‘stolen’ moments too, including from other Hitch movies, but I’ll leave you to spot those for yourself.

“Effective and shocking”

Angie Dickinson begins the movie looking as if she’s going to be the central character. She plays frustrated housewife Kate Miller, and for the first 35 minutes we follow her story as she seeks help from her therapist Dr Elliott (Michael Caine), then embarks on a tryst with a mystery man she picks up at an art museum.

On leaving his apartment hours later, Kate realises she’s left behind her wedding ring and so tries to return to retrieve it – thus sealing her fate. As she attempts to make the lift go up to her lover’s floor, someone enters and slashes her to death in a hugely effective and shocking moment. Prostitute Liz Blake (played by De Palma’s then-wife Nancy Allen) finds Kate in her final moments, but spots the killer in the lift’s mirrored walls, helping her avoid becoming their next victim.

But Liz ends up as the police’s prime suspect, eventually joining forces with Kate’s nerdy teenage son Peter (Keith Gordon) to track down who was really behind the crime, putting their own lives in danger in the process.

If you’ve never seen the film before, I won’t spoil it by giving away whodunit, but it’s hard to write about Dressed to Kill without mentioning the fact that the reasons for the murderer’s behaviour and bloodlust wouldn’t be accepted today in our more enlightened times.

“Much to admire”

Nevertheless, I have a certain fondness for the film, perhaps because Caine delivers one of his more pared-back performances; there’s no random shouty moments which, let’s face it, he’s been known to do over the years.

The unlikely partnership between Liz and Peter (a character inspired by the young De Palma himself) is rather touching too, and although the ending does go on a little too long, there’s still much to admire about the film as a whole.

Special features are plentiful too, including video essays, and interviews with cast and crew.