Reviewed by Rama Gaind.
Creator/director: Clint Eastwood, Via Vision Entertainment.
Cast: Clint Eastwood, Jessica Walter, Donna Mills, John Larch, Clarice Taylor, Irene Hervey.
Eastwood was way ahead of the times in 1971 when he directed his first film. This is a straightforward, yet entertaining ‘stalker thriller’.
Play Misty for Me is an often fascinating nailbiter about psychotic Evelyn Draper (Walter), whose deranged infatuation for Eastwood leads her to commit murder.
Self-centered California jazz disc jockey Dave Garver (Eastwood) struggles with the idea of committing to his on-again, off-again girlfriend Tobie Wlliams (Mills). However, one night he attracts the amorous attentions of a demented fan named Evelyn.
Dave picks her up at a bar, then later at her apartment she admits that she is the cooing caller who repeatedly asks Dave to play the Erroll Garner classic Misty.
From then on, the film is a lesson in how one casual date can turn your whole life around. Evelyn stalks Dave everywhere, ruins his business lunch, assaults his maid, mutilates his house and all of his belongings and finally threatens to butcher his girlfriend Tobie.
It’s a brief fling between the DJ and an obsessed female fan, but it takes a scary, and perhaps even deadly turn when another woman enters the picture. You’ll never be able to hear that song again without looking over your shoulder.
Walter gives a first-class performance as an uncommon woman whose peculiarities are killing. Eastwood is superb in his dual role as director and actor. His support cast is admirable: John Larch as a detective who nearly solves the case; Taylor, outstanding as a housekeeper; and Hervey as a potential sponsor driven off by Walter’s insults.
Suspense thrillers have a purpose. They engage, frighten and provide seconds of explicit fear. Play Misty for Me does that with an almost unkind competence.
