The camera lingers on the smoke rising from a raging inferno. The clouds billow into the night sky in sensuous slow motion as John Barry’s languid, slightly sleazy title theme slips into the background, giving way to the sound of distant sirens. A cross-fade reveals the sweat-soaked back of a half-naked man, watching from a window. The woman behind him bemoans the heat and slowly starts to dress, teasing him to draw his attention away from the fire. He knows the building that is in flames and jokingly protests, “My history is burning up out there!” before he is persuaded to return to her. Ominously, the camera does not move with him, instead choosing to remain on the blaze, waiting — as if it knows it is only a matter of time before he is drawn back to it…
It is not really a spoiler to observe that the opening scene of Lawrence Kasdan’s 1981 thriller Body Heat foreshadows its ending. It draws so deliberately on classic film noir that cine-literate viewers will realise almost immediately that the man watching the fire, Ned Racine (William Hurt), is doomed. What they will not know is exactly how he will meet his fate, and one of the many pleasures of this ruthlessly efficient movie is the way it twists and turns, consistently keeping its audience on their toes without ever entirely denying their expectations. It is film noir to the core, but with an audacity and self-awareness far beyond pastiche or simple stylistic exercise. In its reworking of the classic formula, it also helped to define aspects of a new genre: the erotic thriller.
Writer-director Kasdan’s screenplay is a model of concise, sharp storytelling. Although Body Heat was his directorial debut, he had cut his teeth co-writing the blockbusters The Empire Strikes Back (1980) and Raiders Of The Lost Ark (1981). It is therefore perhaps no surprise that his film showcases a pronounced knack for establishing character and situation with both economy and detail, as well as an unshakable commitment to sheer entertainment.
The film repeatedly conveys complex information through deceptively short, naturalistic scenes, the action and dialogue imparting dense exposition with subtlety and grace. The very first scene sets up the story’s sweltering environment, casually tells us that Ned is a lawyer and a ladies’ man (and not particularly scrupulous in either field), and shows us how easily distracted he is by danger and by sex — all within barely a minute and a half. The following scene, set in a courtroom, introduces us to the supporting character of Lowenstein (Ted Danson), while neatly reinforcing our shady impression of the lead. As a judge scolds Ned for his flimsy defence and dubious client, assistant prosecutor Lowenstein leans nonchalantly on the bench behind them. Without the character saying a word, we realise that Lowenstein knows and likes Ned, but has also seen this scene many times before and is well aware of his friend’s flaws. All of this is communicated solely by Danson’s facial expressions and body language, and his subtle placing in the centre of the frame between the two actors with dialogue.
In keeping with its noir inspirations, the basic plot of Body Heat bears more than a passing resemblance to Billy Wilder’s 1944 classic Double Indemnity. Ned begins an affair with the married Matty Walker (Kathleen Turner) and is slowly convinced to murder her husband Edmund (Richard Crenna) so that the couple can live happily ever after on their inherited wealth. The roles of Hurt and Turner echo those of Fred MacMurray and Barbara Stanwyck in the earlier film, while Edward G. Robinson’s part is divided between Danson and J.A. Preston as detective Oscar Grace, unwillingly drawn by their own dogged integrity to suspect their less salubrious friend. As in Double Indemnity, the murderous plot goes awry, but Body Heat delights in reflecting the earlier film only to diverge from it every time the audience thinks they have predicted the next move.
While Renie Conley’s costume design evokes a certain timeless quality, updating the styles of the 1940s without obviously tying them to the fashions of the 1980s, the film is a striking modernisation of classic noir in many other ways. As with other relatively contemporary neo-noirs such as Point Blank (1967) and Chinatown (1974), many scenes are bathed in bright sunlight in contrast to the black and white chiaroscuro of old, while the nights swim with a warm, sultry glow. Where the demands of censorship forced films of the ‘40s and ‘50s to restrain their more extreme impulses, the language of Body Heat is frank and the violence harder (though still more implied than seen).
Most infamously, the film lives up to its suggestive title with far more sexually explicit material than its noir forebears. Where Double Indemnity fetishized Barbara Stanwyck’s ankle bracelet and Fred MacMurray’s clammy cleft chin, Body Heat writhes with bare, sweating skin and overtly sexual passion, the humidity and lust oozing from the screen. However, as with its violence, it expertly manages the trick of making audiences think they see more than they actually do. Outside of a few steamy scenes in the first half, the impression of overwhelming sensuality is created by the performances and the atmosphere rather than by prolonged sex scenes. Despite being a significant influence on what became the erotic thriller genre (along with the same year’s remake of The Postman Always Rings Twice and giallo-referencing slashers from Brian De Palma, such as 1980’s Dressed To Kill), it avoids the intentionally ludicrous oversexualisation of 1992’s Basic Instinct and the less self-aware silliness of the clones that followed in the wake of Paul Verhoeven’s gleefully explicit hit.
Body Heat’s well-judged balance of explicitness and restraint is vital to its success, along with its strong performances. The supporting cast, which includes a young Mickey Rourke, all get their moment to shine, developing small details that bring even the most minor characters to life, suggesting personality beyond simply fulfilling the story’s requirements. However, the core of the film belongs to Ned and Matty, and the superlative performances of Hurt and Turner.
The characters first meet on the seafront. Matty appears, dressed in white, walking down the centre of an aisle towards Ned, a visual parody of a wedding that lends an inevitability to their affair. They circle each other, swapping sides of the frame, their dialogue crackling with sexual tension. Later, we see them post-coital, trying to cool down in a black bathtub filled with ice but still “burning up.” The infernal heat of their destructive union cannot be stopped, recalling the raging fire of the opening scene. But if this image suggests they are both hellbound, there seems little doubt that Ned will get there first.
Like many a film noir protagonist before him, Ned is undone by his own lust, laziness, and complacency, descending from his initial self-impressed certainty into confusion, anger, and paranoia. At first the camera regards him steadily, but by his final appearances, its point of view has become unmoored, stalking and circling him to reflect his situation. Hurt hits exactly the right notes throughout, drawing the audience with him despite the character’s many flaws. He knows Ned is a fool but never makes him an entirely unsympathetic one, even when the film itself seems to mock him (with a man in full clown regalia driving past him as he prepares to attend his murderous appointment).
Turner, in her film debut, is simply astonishing in a role that consciously draws on previous femmes fatales. As well as Stanwyck’s Phyllis from Double Indemnity, there are traces of Ava Gardner’s Kitty Collins (The Killers, 1946) in her performance, while her husky voice echoes Lauren Bacall. Yet Turner creates an earthiness and hunger all her own, her confidence and self-awareness bringing the part to unforgettable life. The nods to previous classic characters could have reduced Matty to a cipher, but Turner turns this potential weakness into a strength. Subtle touches in her expressions and gestures warn us that we are never really seeing the real Matty, even when yet another layer is apparently peeled away. These sly cues inform the audience that they are watching a character performing — and that the performances are the character, the ‘reality’ remaining utterly unknowable. Turner’s Matty plays her parts with such relentless brilliance that the viewer becomes as uncertain as Ned as to who they are really dealing with, summed up by his words at their final meeting: “You never quit, do you? You just keep on coming.”
Of course, the femme fatale stereotype has often been a vehicle for deeply misogynistic fears. While Matty could be interpreted as the ultimate expression of this — manipulative, avaricious, and ruthless — the film subverts this view by elevating Matty to the status of a kind of anti-hero, aided immeasurably by Turner’s ferocious, fascinating performance. Her fearsome cunning and willingness to “do what’s necessary” (to use her husband’s misplaced macho phrase) places her far above the level of all the other characters. Body Heat takes clear glee in wrong-footing its audience, and we relish its twists like a series of masterful magic tricks, meaning that even the most grudging viewer is obliged to appreciate Matty’s sheer nerve and intelligence by the end. This approach is later taken to its zenith by the character of Bridget (Linda Fiorentino) in John Dahl’s 1994 erotic noir The Last Seduction. Dahl’s film dispenses entirely with Matty’s initial ambiguity, making the audience entirely complicit in Bridget’s merciless schemes from the very start and revelling unapologetically in her machinations.
40 years after its first release, Body Heat stands as one of the strongest bridges between classic film noir and its post-modern descendants. It has successfully outlived the very genre it helped to create, the erotic thriller boom of the 1990s having long since burned itself out in mainstream cinema. Its steamy atmosphere contrasts sharply with the coy sexuality of most comparable contemporary thrillers; while graphic language and violence remain acceptable, a more puritanical approach seems to have prevailed regarding sexual content. However, perhaps due to its timeless design and plot, and its refusal to tie its style to the 1940s or 1980s, it has aged extremely well and remains a richly suspenseful, stylish, and enjoyable ride, leagues above most of its imitators.
