Murder a la Mod

Margo Norton wants boyfriend Jared Martin to divorce his wife and marry her. Meanwhile, he's trying to raise $10,000 to finish his movie. For quick cash, he works on a pornographic movie, while practical joker William Finley runs around.

Brian de Palma's first feature shows how cheaply it's produced, not only in the poorly recorded soud track, but the occasional attempts at sped-up silent comedy. I found the movie to be unfocused, roaming from one subplot to the next without any sense of pacing in the editing, and the characters dull, one-note, whiny, and not too bright.

Murder à la Mod (1968)

* 1/2 (out of 4)

Brian De Palma's feature debut has a woman (Margo Norton) trying to raise money so that her boyfriend (Jared Martin) can continue shooting a movie. The only problem is that the girlfriend is brutally murdered but who committed the crime?

MURDER A LA MOD is a film worth watching if you're a fan of De Palma and must see everything that he's done. It's certainly much better than THE WEDDING PARTY but that's not really saying too much considering how bad that one is. This film here offers up a few interesting ideas and it's clear to see a few things that the director would use in later movies.

There are several homages here to Hitchcock including some obvious ones to PSYCHO. These are mildly entertaining but the biggest problem with this movie is the fact that the story itself is just boring and it's quite confusing. Some would say that the director was already showing his "more style than substance" here. As far as the actual style goes, there's some of that on display here but it's easy to see this was a director learning his trade.

The young cast were good for the most part and we also get William Finley in a small role. As I said there are several bits here that will appear in later De Palma movie including the sped up action (like in CARRIE when the boys are trying their suits on) as well as a woman being directed by the director (later seen in BLOW OUT). This film is a bit too boring for its own good but De Palma die hards will want to check it out.

Naive young lady Karen wants to help her struggling amateur filmmaker boyfriend Christopher raise enough money so he can divorce his wife. Meanwhile, jolly psycho prankster Otto stalks the building where Christopher is shooting a low-grade adult movie in order to keep himself afloat.

What we have here is the world of exploitation, underground film presented by a young auteur working in the experimental art scene. I think it works. Granted, this is not a fully developed film, as it had no budget and little cast. But not unlike the early work of Polanski or Cronenberg, there is plenty of potential here.

The film was released in one cinema in New York City, quickly disappeared not long after, and was thought lost. Lucky for us, this was not the case. Although on its own it may be nothing special, it is a crucial piece in understanding De Palma's talent and vision.

We also get some music and screen time from William Finley (1940-2012), who would go on to work with De Palma many more times (and also with Tobe Hooper). His character alone makes this worth a peek.

This review is only for peeps who love their DePalma. Everyone else can drop a star or two. Or three. However, if you are a "Sisters" fanatic like I am, this early DePalma horror film is rediscovered genius. It reminds me of Dementia 13, the black and white horror debut of another of the great directors of the 70s, Fracis Coppola. This is better. Much better. Though Dementia 13 has great atmosphere, Murder A La Mod is fast paced, funny, weird, sexy, experimental, brutal, bloody, and much more modern. And the title song (by future Phantom of the Paradise, William Finley)is stuck in my head fo' reez. I'm 'bout it like Otto is 'bout his icepick.

It's something refreshing to the mind of a movie buff when we come across a filmmaker who doesn't change all that much during a career, but keeps making himself seem fresh, if that makes sense. Brian De Palma, for better or worse (and he's had both), is a filmmaker who hasn't changed a whole lot in forty years, at least where some of his central concerns meet. Take the opening scene, where a director is holding a screen test for a few girls, telling them to take off their clothes. This is also seen later on in The Black Dahlia where a director auditions Elizabeth Smart (in both I believe might be voiced uncredited by De Palma himself). Right from here there's no mistaking, even in just a simple one shot, how much he loves the act of watching, the technical, plastic aspect of it, the movement of a camera, frame speeds and the possibilities in even satirizing the process of film-making and voyeurism.

Muder a la Mod is possibly his first feature, and it's certainly not technically perfect, or even very accomplished in the sense that his films of the 80s look (storyboarding, as he said he did for films like Dressed to Kill and The Untouchables). But I would much rather watch a work like this, which has a lot of invention and off-the-wall comedy and unpredictability, than one of his more recent bloated studio productions. And the story is gleefully ripped off the pages of quarter-cent paperbacks and given the De Palma twist: Karen is in love with Christopher, who is a freelance photographer and aspiring filmmaker, but she doesn't quite understand why he wants her to leave when she stops in one day as he watches dailies. Turns out he's making this film, a skin-flick, so that he can get a divorce from his wife. But there's more: a leering, merry/psycho prankster named Otto is stalking around the building doing this and that, holding not one but two ice-picks (one fake and one real, as little title-arrows direct us to at one point), and as Karen's friend waits outside for her a murder occurs, with bizarre circumstances.

The twist to this, aside from seeing De Palma mess with the speed of film and timing and framing and cutting and this and that with lighting and going between Gothic horror and silent slapstick (in more Godard form than Hitchcock as one also saw in Greetings and Hi, Mom!) is that De Palma adds the touches of dark comedy that one associates with him, and that he can do well when working without a net. He jumps around, for example, in the middle of what should be a simple exposition scene between Karen and Tracy (not bad though not quite "good" actresses Norton and Akers), where the script seems to be presented in tact, just no in the usual 180-degree kind of structure of a scene. It's an uneasy feeling at first, but it's nevertheless captivating, and this attitude continues throughout, as though De Palma knew he had nothing to lose but his creative freedom on limited resources. I'm even reminded of Kubrick's two early films, Killer's Kiss and the Killing, by featuring a freewheeling, guerrilla-style take on New York City, and a the triple-back structure of the narrative in regards to the Killing.

As I said, it's not exactly great shakes as a film, but it's flaws are mostly due to budget and, as expected, not having the best cast members (my least favorite scene involved a bank manager who gave Tracy a tough time in receiving her "ice", not simply because the bank actor but the scene goes too long). Though as in other cases, De Palma has a wild card in one of the great unsung character actors: William Finley. This is a strange, creepy man, who apparently can make some music as well as go about like some demented clown (he wrote and performed the title track). His character Otto is a little like his character in Sisters crossed with his character in Black Dahlia (the latter the one pleasant surprise in that film aside from the screen test bit); he has these two ice picks, and at first looks like a very sinister character, the "obvious" one to do the work of being the murderer, and as well carrying along a fresh corpse in that trunk. But De Palma's double back to him in the story is the most entertaining: he doesn't speak, but his thoughts are jumbled like out of a Frank Zappa record, and as he ascends stairs he sprints and the camera jubilantly follows quickly. In his first role, in the first De Palma movie, he makes his mark well.