Dressed to Kill (1980)

Dressed to Kill (1980), directed by Brian De Palma.

A housewife with a vivid sexual fantasy life visits her shrink, then stalks and is stalked by a stranger at the art museum. After sex in a cab and then in his hotel room, she is murdered in the elevator. A prostitute is both witness and suspect; she teams up with the woman's teenaged son to find the real killer.

It's stylish and involving, despite the gaping plot holes, mostly regarding how the killer knows where people are going to be. The murder weapon is a straight razor and the unrated cut is a bit more gruesome than I require.

Michael Caine wrote that this was his first good role after a series of flops. He took the role when a lot of actors wouldn't, worried about image problems.

Dennis Franz is a hoot as the police detective: "Now I want you to find your friend Ted from out of town and bring him in town and down town and in here..."

De Palma, Caine and Nancy Allen were all nominated for the "1st Golden Raspberry Award", which seems silly now. I can see being unhappy with Allen's line delivery, but I can also imagine a hooker talking like that. She got a Golden Globe nomination for the same role, so go figure.

Much nudity and passion, some of it rather steamy.

Available on Blu-ray, but not from Netflix.

This is the "unrated" cut, which I don't believe I've seen before. More explicit sex, violence and language. I don't recall 1980 non-porn films being as anatomically explicit as the opening shower scene here. A featurette demonstrates the differences between the unrated, R-rated, and network versions.

Angie Dickinson (age 49) has a body double for the shower scene but does some of her own nudity as well. Thanks to Nancy Allen (Mrs De Palma at the time) for her efforts in this area as well.