Perversa Paixão

I ended up watching this almost by accident... I'm currently home from college and my mother taped it and told me I would like it, and I just figured "heck, got some free time to spare, why not?". And I am glad that I did. Clint Eastwood (playing Dave Garver) is fantastic and Jessica Walter (playing Evelyn) should get a freaking medal for her performance. The supporting cast is great as well and well worth just as much interest as the main cast. Eastwood is a decent director: for the most part, the atmosphere and scenes are set well and the actors have clear, impactful direction. It's not a scary film, at least not in this day and age, but it kept me on the edge of my seat for the majority of the time. If you like psychological thrillers, check this out for sure, and if you like Clint Eastwood, you won't be disappointed.

Now, that said, there are some problems here. Namely, this movie is overlong. I can think of two scenes that could be and should be cut. Also, there's almost an ever-present musical backdrop , and at times it works as a soundtrack. But at times, it just doesn't belong in the scene it is used in and actually is off-putting.

Overall, however, I would recommend this as an essential to any fan of thriller films, even though it may not be a staple of the genre or one of the more popular films within it.

This movie, I suppose, was the first nice-guy-being-stalked-by-psycho-female thriller. And it's quite damn good. Modern audiences might feel the film was too low-key, but I found it very suspenseful. This proves you don't need eerie music (there's very little score on the soundtrack) and continuous gore to create suspense. Jessica Walter is terrifying--maybe not as terrifying as Glenn Close in "Fatal Attraction," but she comes pretty close. It's fun--and somewhat hilarious--to see Clint Eastwood as a young man with LOTS of hair. This was his first directorial effort, and he did a fine job. Over 30 years, the premise has become all-too-familiar, so unfortunately the story is predictable. Maybe 1970's audiences found it more shocking. But I was able to predict who would die and when. Nevertheless, I still found "Play Misty For Me" very entertaining and very well-acted. But what was with that jazz concert scene? Clint definitely should've left that on the cutting room floor.

My score: 7 (out of 10)

Too-careful shocker directed and starring Clint Eastwood involves a radio disc-jockey who gets seductive requests by telephone for the song "Misty"--he later meets the overly-friendly female fan and they share a fling, but she 'won't be ignored'. Tense thriller may have been the starting point for Adrian Lyne's "Fatal Attraction", though this one is far less slick. Sometimes an actor is so good in a role that it's impossible to see them as anyone else later in their career; such is the case with Jessica Walter, who nails this part of the psychotic woman--and seems to embody instability itself! Several scenes go on too long, the climax is so dark visually it is nearly incoherent, and there's a jazz festival interlude (and a romantic montage with Eastwood and Donna Mills) that feels like padding, but the central situation is unsettling, well-crafted and well-played. As for Walter, she had a tough time shaking off the affects left behind with this role, which of course is both pro and con. *** from ****

This is quite an impressive, very 70s looking psycho-thriller that is sure to please.

Clint Eastwood plays Dave Garver, a radio DJ in southern California. One night, a woman calls requesting that he "Play Misty for me." Later, he meets the woman at a bar he goes to often, and they go back to her house together and make love. The next morning, he leaves, figuring it was just a one-night stand, but when he gets home, the woman, Evelyn Draper (Jessica Walter) shows up with groceries and starts to make herself at home. Dave decides to go with it, and later sees that his old girlfriend, Tobie Williams (Donna Mills), is back in town, and the two become close again. But Evelyn won't go away, and continues to follow Dave everywhere, and starts to get viciously jealous of Tobie. And as Dave and Tobie's relationship forms, Evelyn becomes angry and violent, and eventually, murderous, and Dave must find some way to stop her before she ruins his life, and potentially, kills him.

A very creepy movie. Jessica Walter is beyond convincing as the jealous psycho lover, and Clint Eastwood proves that he doesn't just do Dirty Harry movies. Donna Mills is also quite good as the innocent girlfriend. The movie implies and foreshadows a lot, making everything even scarier. But the best scene in the whole movie is the knife attack on the maid, Birdie. That scene competes with the shower scene in "Psycho" as one of the most shocking in film history. The way the camera darts and swings around, and Birdie's screams as she struggles and fights to get away, all add up to one of the scariest scenes I've every seen. The climax is quite good, if not executed a little too quickly, but what led to it was shocking enough to overshadow it.

All in all, a great film that I would definitely recommend.

A brief fling between a male disc jockey and an obsessed female fan takes a frightening, and perhaps even deadly turn when another woman enters the picture.

I found this trivia interesting. Even though it touches on the early-'70s flashpoints of sexual liberation, studio execs expressed doubts about why anyone would want to see a movie featuring Eastwood as a deejay. Eastwood reportedly answered that he was not sure either, but he thought it was a good suspense story, and he offered his services as director for free. Play Misty for Me wound up making five times more than it cost and is a precursor to such erotic thrillers as Fatal Attraction (1987) and Basic Instinct (1992). Eastwood mentor Don Siegel appears early on as a bartender.

In the role of the stalker is Jessica Walter who balances between crazed, malevolent psychopath and sweetheart bimbo with a creepy ease. Much of the credit must go to Jessica Walter for her outstanding performance . A highly enjoyable thriller.