Body Attraction

"Body Language" tells of a corporate exec assistant who climbs the ladder of success by eliminating the competition. Like Elvis on black velvet, the flick looks good, is cheap, will never be good art, but will have a market among the less discerning. A chick flick with the good guy really, really good and the bad guy an oily sexist pig, this flick features Locklear as the exec who's in the way of her psycho assistant Purl's ambition. Conveniently overlooking the countless plot holes, "Body Language" is just another take on an old plot, hackneyed, contrived, obvious, etc. An okay no brainer time killer for sofa spuds, especially the distaff. (C)

"Betsy Frieze" (Heather Locklear) is a young executive-in-training who finally wins a very coveted promotion within her corporation. When she gets to her new office she finds a new executive assistant named "Norma" (Linda Purl) who has replaced the previous secretary who mysteriously vanished. However, things aren't going as smoothly as Betsy had thought they would because her constant work at the office eventually leads to a breakup with her boyfriend "Victor" (James Acheson). She also has a boss named "Charles Stella" (Edward Albert) who is furious that Betsy won't sleep with him. And then things get really bad. At any rate, rather than disclose any more of the film and risk ruining it for those who haven't seen it I will just say that this was a pretty good made-for-television movie. Of course, being that it was made for a television audience it doesn't have any nudity or graphic violence that might accompany a film with this specific subject matter. But Heather Locklear and Linda Purl both put on fine performances in any case. Both of them also look quite attractive too. All things considered then I rate this movie as slightly above average.

Heather Locklear and Linda Purl both give it their all in this made for TV Single White Female rip-off which finds Locklears executive terrorized by Purl's devious secretary who wants more than her job - she wants her entire life. She steals her boyfriend, makes a copy of her house key, and starts killing anyone who gets in her way. It never reaches the right level of campy histrionics that makes movies like this memorable and entertaining, but it's fun enough to have on in the background.

When Betsy Frieze (Heather Locklear) is promoted to business executive of the Orpheus Corporation, she feels pressed and harassed by her boss Charles Stella (Edward Albert) since she is the first woman to be promoted to a management position. Her relationship with her boyfriend Victor Keaton (James Acheson) is affected by her overwork, but Betsy is helped by her assistant Norma Suffield (Linda Purl), who is replacing the former secretary that vanished. The stressed Betsy does not realize that that Norma is a woman obsessed in her position and is jeopardizing her work and her personal life.

"Body Language" (1992) is a thriller made for TV in the same year of "Single White Female" that has many elements in common. The plot has many clichés and flaws and is totally predictable since the viewer knows the intention of Norma from the very beginning, but also entertains. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "Um Corpo de Mulher" ("A Body of Woman")

Norma Suffield (Linda Purl) is the personal assistant to Betsy Freize (Heather Locklear), the `first female executive in the history of the Orpheus Capital Corporation'. However Norma appears to have killed Holly Anthony who was to be Betsy's assistant, since Norma is desperate to be in the company's executive program, though it is said she `has the right attitude but not the right stuff'. She forms a fixation on Betsy, copying her wardrobe, her hairstyle, dating her boyfriend Victor Keaton (James Acheson) who of course thinks Betsy works too much, and even using Betsy's toothbrush (ick!).

Although lit deliberately unflatteringly, Purl adds some odd touches to Norma - at one point imitating Locklear's intonation and vanity - and demonstrating schizophrenic behavior, without any awareness. When Victor tells her `I think I need a little bit of space' Purl's `What?' is a laugh of derision and disbelief. Locklear's emotional breakdowns reveal the lack of depth she has compared to Purl's displays of anger, notably when she snuffs out large candles with her hands.

The teleplay by Dan Gurskis and Brian Ross makes Betsy unintentionally patronising, by having her include the commas and full stops in her dictated letters. Orpheus is a company who stoops to employ the sleazy smirking Charles Stellar (Edward Albert) who tells Betsy `If you want to survive here without your pantyhose down, you better pull ‘em up'. The dialogue ranges from oblique with Detective Gordon (Gary Bisig) investigating Holly's murder `Right now I don't think anything. That just means I have to think everything', to witty when Gordon asks Betsy `The competition for upward mobility is fairly cutthroat, isn't it' and she replies `Yes, but not literally'.

Director Arthur Allan Seidelman seems to have his own kind of fixation - closeups of shoes, the kind that female corporate players wear that accompany short skirts and long legs. However he he does have a talent for cross-cutting between two different emotional states. If the slow motion he uses for Norma's knifing someone seems like a means of covering up Purl's inability to perform the act convincingly, and the titled camera-work to tell us Norma is irrevocably unbalanced by the climax a little too obvious, there is an amusing edit from the discovery of the dead Holly in the stationary cupboard by Betsy to Norma in bed with Victor.