Deadly Illusion

I was hired as an extra and was waiting on the set for the day to start when Cohen called me over. "Hey kid - you an actor?" I thought, well that's why I'm here, but he added "I mean can you do lines?" I said sure, and he handed me two pages and said "Learn this." It was the Assistant District Attorney's scene with Billy Dee William's character - and I was beside myself with excitement - and fear, as it included a fairly long rip-him-a-new-one monologue. Apparently, the actor they'd hired was a no show. But about 15 minutes into my "star is born" opportunity, the actor showed - he'd been stuck in traffic. The director promised to "throw me a bone", and I ended up upgraded to playing the dead body on the slab next to the naked girl in the morgue scene.

Later in the filming, I came on again as Joe Cortese's stand-in, but had to leave the set later in the day with a 102-degree fever. But before falling ill, had a good time with BDW (one of the nicest guys ever on set) and playing cards with the Teamsters between shots.

Heard later that this film production managed to get the Staten Island Ferry stuck on a sandbar during filming - a first in the Ferry's history!

My review was written in October 1987 after a Midtown Manhattan screening.

"Deadly Illusion", formerly titled "Love You to Death", is a very entertaining tongue-in-cheek homage to film noir, spotlighting a charming, funny performance by lead Billy Dee Wiliams; Absence of exploitation values and a poverty row budget puts this effort at a disadvantage in today's action film market, however.

Writer-director Larry Cohen (he began helming this film but producers chose Willaim Tannen of "Flashpoint" to complete the direction) successfuly paid homage to the Edward G. Robinson style of gangster pic with his Fred Williamson-starrer "Black Caesar", and here harkens back to the lovable scoundrel personified (pre-"The Thin Man") by William Powell. Williams plays Hamberger, a detective with no license whose habit of causing accidental deaths is a career detriment (pic's body count is very high and a source of black humor).

He's hired by Dennis Hallahan to kill his wife. Williams accepts the $25,000 retainer, but goes to warn the wife, played by Morgan Fairchild in a black wig. She beds him and splits, but all hell breaks loose when the real wife is found murdered and Hallahan turns out to be an imposter (John Beck plays the real husband). While playing cat and mouse with his old buddy cop Joe Cortese, Williams finally tracks down a drugrunning ring set in the world of models, led by Fairchild (in her familiar blonde persona).

With very clever dialog by Cohen (including a throwaway line that predicts a stock market crash, not bad for a film shot last December), Williams excels at shtick mocking his pretty boy image. One funny scene has him crashing a fashion show and enjoying the fact that he's mistaken for Reggie Jackson. As his girlfriend, Vanity provides the requisite beauty and her acting is becoming more natural tan in her previous films, while Fairchild is delicious as the baddie with many a double entendre. Joe Spinell has a cute bit whipping out a gun and taking a hostage when the firearms license bureu won't honor his request for a permit.

Using hidden camera techniques and other evidence of guerrilla filmmaking, pic gives the ilusion of some scale, but too many scenes are static talkathons, reminiscent of quota quickies. It's the dialog and performances that carry the picture.

Quite a modest, but diverting modern crime noir featuring the likes of Billy Dee Williams, Vanity, Morgan Fairchild and John Beck. Director / writer Larry Cohen was the man behind the production, until he was replaced halfway through by director William Tannen. This makes the atmospheric tone rather uneven and the script does have its random occurrences (Williams stuffing his face with a pickle/ or chicken and getting in a confrontation with an elevator door?!) and continuity problems that seem to be more so noticeable the further along it goes. The climatic revelations leaves us with many loose plot ends and a disappointing pay-off. Nonetheless it's Williams' performance along with a luminous Vanity that adds life to this rather formulaic cut and dry presentation. Playing it tough, but with a sardonic edge ("Everybody is kicking my arse today"); a fashionable Williams made for a likable suave, if brash presence (well-dressed and also sweet talking the ladies) as his private eye character Hamberger finds himself set-up for murder after taking up an offer to knock off someone's wife. Instead he informs the lady of the deal, so she can flee. However she ends up dead, Hamberger is the prime suspect and he finds out the man who made the offer and the lady he met up with that night wasn't who he was to believe. Now it's a race against the clock to find the real killer.

Technically is competently pulled off with some sturdy set-pieces; like its great intro with a sweet cameo by Joe Spinell, a spectacular fist-fight in a large Christmas tree, Williams finding himself in a helicopter-by shooting and against the odds holding a chair while his aggressor aims up with a scythe. Not to forget the climatic shootout at Shea Stadium. The New York location work is very well pulled off. The narrative is busily structured, where one thing leads onto another and this follows Williams' luckless character. Outside Williams and Vanity; Morgan Fairchild gives an icy performance, John Beck does rather little and Joseph Cortese fairs up much better.

Billy Dee Williams plays Hamberger, the rogue private detective who gets the girl(s) and solves the case. You really don't need to know more, as this is the entire movie! Morgan Fairchild is still beautiful, even with the 80's big hair look. The plot line had initial promise - Hamberger is approached by an unknown person to kill that persons wife. This person and the wife both turn out to be other than advertised, but there the story started to lose my interest. Gratuitous sex and violence have always been par for the course in Hollywood of course. Here, the obvious intent to sell tickets with this fare, as well as - admittedly - one of the hottest actresses of the time, soured me.

watch the first half of this movie and invent your own second half. it had so much promise.

mr. williams and ms. fairchild get it going with what seems to be an actual passion for their pairing and proximity. and why not? mr. colt 45 and ms. seduction were the hot and bother of their decade, and even if it would be a few more years before ms. sciorra and mr. snipes mixed it up in JUNGLE FEVER, the dams were ready to break. vanity fans will also not be disappointed. if you are souring from the aftertaste of lando calrissian in RETURN OF THE JEDI, this is good tonic. the best visuals of the movie are when mr. williams plants his lower body and delivers a punch. other action stars should study this, but alas, not everyone can move with the authoritative and accessible grace of billy dee.

ms. fairchild's fans will not like ms. fairchild in liza minelli hair, but she has her moments on screen and returns to familiar coiffure and stature soon enough. her moments make good excerpts, like cuttings from a magazine. ms. vanity, in contrast, flows more happily with the film's main stream.

the deadly illusion in this case is the illusion that mr. cohen had an ending to the film when he pitched the beginning. and no, neither this title nor its alternate title has anything to do with the story.