Body Heat (1981)

They really don't make them like this anymore

Young William & young Mickey = plenty of heat

It’s one of those classic films which launched many careers. Very watchable. And it started me collecting wind chimes!

R2 Yes! Kathleen Turner was a vixen, too

Actually everything does go according to plan, it's just not William Hurt's plan it's the femme fetal's plan.

Great typo, OP.

R5 she conned him hardcore.

Femme fetal.

Loved the score. The opening theme was so seductive.

An absolutely perfect movie.

Kathleen Turner had a phenomenal filmography in the 80's.

Body Heat

Crimes of Passion

Romancing the Stone

Prizzi's Honor

Peggy Sue Got Married

Julia and Julia

Who Framed Roger Rabbit?

War of the Roses

She should have won an Oscar for Romancing the Stone (sorry Sally). And it's baffling that she was only nominated once for such high quality work.

R10 Yes, then in the 1990's she was bedridden with a then uncurable disease. Thank God she was able to get over it an get back to work.

When (he) Hurt smashes the front window to get to (her) Turner...or when they're in the tub together cooling off...HOT, HOT, HOT. They were both at their physical primes. I've seen the movie multiple times and I feel sweaty every time.

Definitely one of the sexiest movies ever made. It's a classic for me.

I didn't like this movie, but young Mickey—what a prince. So beautiful.

I was hot for sweaty Ted Danson.

Just rewatched this. Holds up.

Also, wanted to add that there were some humorous moments, like when the lawyers were meeting with the bereaved and everyone lit up their cigarettes.

I opened this thread to add the same comment as R16. I rewatched this a few weeks ago and was impressed how well it holds up. It really is classic noir, right up there with any Wilder, Huston, or Hitchcock film.

And don't forget Richard Crenna as the Sugar Daddy

Clever wink wink inside joke to have the lookalike for Kathleen's character to be played by Kim Zimmer, who was one of the replacements for Kathleen on the soap The Doctors. They did look alike (then.....and somewhat so now, too).

I get this film and Body Double, another film I don't like, confused. So awful were the 80s that these were considered great films, and by comparison I guess they were! What a horrible decade.

One of my all-time favorite movies!

One of my favorites.

I watched this last night and we were really laughing. Kathleen was really giving it her all.

“You aren’t too smart, are you? I like that in a man.” Great dialogue and it sums up the plot beautifully.

One of the most atmospheric films of the modern era, you can just feel the steamy, sweaty tropical heat oppressing the characters, making them torpid and slow-witted.

Is there any better way to tell us everything about the main character's life of disappointment and frustration, than to show that he's a lawyer who can't afford air conditioning? That's what good production design and cinematography DO, they tell you all about a person without using any dialogue.

R26 lesser films would have flashback and dialogue about him being a disappointment

I want to like her, but she's an egomaniac.

I will just be boring and agree with what everyone said, a great movie and one of my favorites. A lot of the outdoor scenes were filmed in the West Palm Beach area and I lived there at the time so that adds to my interest. R8, when I think of a score and soundtrack really making a movie, I think of this. Everything worked.

It's "femme fatale," OP. "Fetal" has to do with a fetus.

Anyway, I should rewatch it. I had forgotten that Ted Danson and Mickey Rourke were in it.

I was 11 or 12 the first time I saw this, late at night on HBO at my friend’s house. It was the first “mature” movie I remember watching and not being bored. Our minds were blown—we had never seen anything like that. Then Friday the 13th came on after and we were scared shitless. Memorable night.

Oh, and my mom watched THE DOCTORS, so I got the inside joke with the Kim Zimmer thing.

Fun facts

hot then, hot now

they were all so fucking beautiful

Remember the bit when Hurt’s character uses the men’s room and a young blond surfer type indicates he’d be up for a “transaction”? That got a laugh in the NYC movie theater I saw it in.

I wonder if there were ever any plans for a sequel where Hurt’s character got out of prison and searched for that cunt?

Wow now that’s a good trailer.

Mickey Rourke was hot AF back then.

Apparently it was filmed in the middle of a cold spell in Florida. The actors had to suck on ice cubes before speaking to keep their breath from fogging. The sweat on their skin and clothes was water which was sprayed on them.

This is a great film noir movie. It stands up with the best of them. Everyone in it is pretty perfect.

"Women are rarely allowed to be bold and devious in the movies; most directors are men, and they see women as goals, prizes, enemies, lovers and friends, but rarely as protagonists. Turner's entrance in “Body Heat” announces that she is the film's center of power. It is a hot, humid night in Florida. Hurt, playing a cocky but lazy lawyer named Ned Racine, is strolling on a pier where an exhausted band is listlessly playing. He is behind the seated audience. We can see straight down the center aisle to the bandstand. All is dark and red and orange. Suddenly a woman in white stands up, turns around and walks straight toward him. This is Matty Walker. To see her is to need her.

Turner in her first movie role was an intriguing original. Slender, with hair down to her shoulders, she evoked aspects of Barbara Stanwyck and Lauren Bacall. But the voice, with its elusive hint of a Latin accent, was challenging. She had “angry eyes,” the critic David Thomson observed. And a slight overbite (later corrected, I think) gave a playful edge to her challenging dialogue (“You're not too smart, are you?” she says soon after meeting him. “I like that in a man.”)

Hurt had been in one movie before “Body Heat” (Ken Russell's “Altered States” in 1980). He was still unfamiliar: a tall, already balding, indolently handsome man with a certain lazy arrogance to his speech, as if amused by his own intelligence. “Body Heat” is a movie about a woman who gets a man to commit murder for her. It is important that the man not be a dummy; he needs to be smart enough to think of the plan himself. One of the brilliant touches of Kasdan's screenplay is the way he makes Ned Racine think he is the initiator of Matty Walker's plans."

Is this the one that William Hirt has a full frontal? I kind of remember finding kit he was uncut

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The music is wonderful though John Barry's music always sounds the same. Turner was a problem for me. I never bought her as the sex-bomb she was meant to be.

Enjoyed the podcast series “You Must Remember This - Erotic 80s.” One episode featured Body Heat.

Because of this thread, I watched BODY HEAT again for the first time in probably over 25 years. It is indeed a classic. It’s kind of a perfect movie. Hurt and Turner were both so hot.

It's so very Florida.

Eh, it's upscale Florida. Florida is really more low rent trailer trash than that.

"Body Heat" out-steamed and outperformed that other neo-noir film of 1981, "The Postman Always Rings Twice," which had a more prestigious pedigree (Jack Nicholson, Bob Rafelson, David Mamet, Sven Nykvist). "Body Heat" was Lawrence Kasdan's directorial debut, while Hurt & Turner were relative unknowns, so it's interesting how this film turned out to be the better of the two.

Kim Zimmer sometimes comes and does theater here in Kalamazoo, MI where I live.

Sometime I hope to ask her how it feels to be in one of the greatest American films ever made.

There is not a bad performance in this movie.

"You're not too smart, are you? I like that in a man."

NEWSFLASH: I'm carrying Travis' femme fetal! He already bought her a tiny pair of thigh-high stockings with garters and you guys, they're soooo cute and retro! Pics to come!

Hurt has such a shlumpy, nerdy walk that I’m always surprised the power of his acting is enough to carry me past it. He looks like such a dork. And Turner’s conviction of her own attractiveness has the same power. She’s not attractive to me, but I’ve bought that the guys she plays against in movies are in thrall to her. Movie magic.

What was the rule against perpetuities plot twist?

Edmund’s original will called for his estate to be divided equally between Maddy and Heather. The rule against perpetuities made the fake will invalid, so he died intestate resulting in Maddy getting it all. In real life it doesn’t work like that, in that situation they would have gone back to his previous will leaving things as they had been.

I remember seeing this on tv as a baby gay and getting so turned on by William Hurt's bush peaking into frame! Probably turn out that it was a 4:3 unmatted version of the movie and the blu-ray crops it out? Does anyone know?

You can see his cock between 1:16:10-1:16:20 when Kathleen repositions herself on top of him.

I know he was a minor character in the film, but I remember that I liked Ted Danson as D.A. Lowenstein (who would practice his dancing on the pier as he waited to talk to 'Ned'

At that time, TD was a familiar face, but CHEERS hadn't happened yet:

One of those films that started strong with a meandering middle that was validated by the final act. Have to see it again with the ending in mind, certainly made me sit up straight in my seat the first (and only) time I watched. It was as if Kathleen was dropped to earth from Mt. Olympus in the early 80s.

[quote] You can see his cock between 1:16:10-1:16:20 when Kathleen repositions herself on top of him.

you can barely see it or tell if he's cut or uncut (I heard he's uncut)

This has to be one of the best film debuts by an actress in the past 50 years. Kathleen was so good. I read Catherine Hicks turned it down or auditioned for it too - I can’t imagine how it would have been without Turner. Not many actresses I can think of who would have been better.

Kathleen was sort of like a Faye Dunaway of the 80s. Had all those hits.

R61- Faye lasted longer.

“ CHRISTOPHER REEVE TURNED DOWN THE ROLE OF NED. "I put myself down too much," Reeve told The Washington Post of the missed opportunity. "I didn't think I'd be convincing as a seedy lawyer." Reeve later regretted the decision, but was happy that his friend, William Hurt, was cast in the role instead.”

Interesting thread, I will give it a try. I worshipped Hurt when I was a teen back in the days of THE KISS OF THE SIPER WOMAN or whatever. I thought he was as beautiful as a man could be. Then I read that he was a cokehead and a complete jerk. Never liked Turner. very pretentious. Rourke was...God he was a miracle.

Mickey was a looker in those days, dancing around to Bob Seger while Hurt wired a bomb.

Did Reeve ever do explicit sex scenes? Body Heat doesn't really fit in with the rest of his films.

I love this film and consider it nearly perfect--there isn't a wasted scene. One of my favorites is when Ted Danson's character comes to Hurt's and warns him that SOMEBODY is trying to screw Ned hard by talking to the cops, and not in the way he likes. "Our negotiations are continuing," is a great line uttered with such a sad inevitability by Danson. He knows Ned did it, he knows Ned is doomed, and nobody can do a fucking thing about it.

Great film, but the sweat all over everybody indoors is a little silly. I grew up in South Florida and remember the early 80s perfectly well, and everybody had air conditioning.

****Spoiler alert****

So when her friend showed up that evening - the real mattie, she was there to blackmail Mary Ann (Kathleen turner)?

Yep, because she was the real Mattie Tyler. Turner's character was Mary Ann Simpson. They switched identities so Edmund Walker wouldn't find out about Simpson's drugging and whoring and marry her. She's likely been blackmailing Mary Ann for years, all through her marriage to Walker.

Mary Ann's final gambit is masterful: She kills Mattie, frames Ned, and cuts the annoying sister and niece out of the will with one fell stroke.

Great Film

What was remarkable was that Turner was only 27-years-old when she made the film. Just a few years later, you had actresses only a few years younger playing naive high school students in John Hughes films.

She exuded maturity, experience, world weariness and confidence beyond her years. She was all woman.

They don’t make actresses like her anymore.

R53, it’s actually not clear how the will violated the rule against perpetuities. By implication, there was something wrong with the way the trust for Heather was set up. The whole point of the rule is that you can’t create a trust that might last past a certain time period—I.e., a rich person can’t lock up his property in trust forever; at some point the trust has to dissolve and the property has to belong free and clear to someone.

The joke? Florida had abolished the strict application of the rule against perpetuities. Apparently the film was originally set in New Jersey, where the rule (dating back to the 17th Century) was still applied.

I'd like to watch it again, haven't seen it since the 80's. I still remember I was in high school when it first came to HBO and the Monday after the weekend it premiered the guys at school were talking about the sex scenes.

The only too-convenient co-inky-dink scene in the plot is where Ned is drinking in the bar and that guy who recognizes him tells him that he told Mattie about him, and Ned asks him if he told Mattie about the previous case he screwed up and the guy tells Ned, "Hey, I was trying to get you work" but then admits he did tell Mattie/ Mary Ann.

SPOILER ALERT I love the last shot, with Turner sitting in the backyard in that big chair, so pleased with herself and the fact that she pulled it off.

I don't think she's pleased with herself. I think she's rich but empty. But well tended.

[quote]I think she's rich but empty. But well tended.

Indeed. VERY well tended.

Kathleen Turner was the best actress of the '80s. Sorry, M and G.

She gave phenomenal performances and took risks that not many other actresses could have pulled off.

Body Heat, she is simply dazzling. And what's great about her performance is that she is striking without overacting or playing to the last row. A lot of what she does is very subtle but it gets under your skin and stays with you.

Kathleen is my fave actress because she made the boldest choices and always brought the goods.

Mattie/Mary Ann was always empty. A sociopath who knew what she wanted from the beginning--her h.s. yearbook says she wants to be rich and live in an exotic land.

She didn't look all that happy at the end.

Holy shit, she looked happy to me.

Watched it because of this thread. Silly. I agree with Pauline Kael . Soap Opera monotone acting from Turner, silly plot. " I love you " " OK, Let's kill him". I liked Ted Danson a lot. Huge plot holes .The joke about the little girl seeing a dick was gross. and she never tells her mother she's seen a naked man with his peen in aunty's mouth until after the murder ? sure. William Hurt's hairline was receding by the minute; I was afraid his hair might fall off the back of his head altogether before the end of each scene but he was beautiful in a languid way and very sexy. Honestly the acting was not all that, and the plot was very similar to the postman always rings twice. Also, too much graphic sex. Rourke was pretty .4/10

R77 I don’t think there’s ever been an actress who was more please with herself. She was great in a certain type of niche but one of the “greats” overall I’d have to disagree.

And confidence /star power is obviously very appealing to some degree but it also needs to be balanced with humility - she has none.

R82, it’s a direct descendant/modern update of Double Indemnity.

Turner had pig nose and was so obnoxious and pretentious that I didn't feel one bit sorry for her when she was taken ill and disappeared. Same with Stone.

I love the endings of both Body Heat and War of the Roses. It's debatable if she is "happy" or pleased with the outcome. And with War of the Roses, I had a debate with a friend over whether or not Barbara pushed his hand away or they both did at the same time.

|quote] And with War of the Roses, I had a debate with a friend over whether or not Barbara pushed his hand away or they both did at the same time.

Did you? did you really ? wow, your life is so interesting

[quote] |quote] And with War of the Roses, I had a debate with a friend over whether or not Barbara pushed his hand away or they both did at the same time. Did you? did you really ? wow, your life is so interesting

Well, at least I know how to quote someone properly you fucking cunt.

That gossip site said KT did so badly at the War of the Roses reading that Douglas and Devito fought to keep her in. Luckily it was the final years of when she was still attractive.

R89 Between the booze, the RA, and her gay-wad husband's legal troubles following the 87 immigrants who died in his fire-trap of a tenement block, KT had problems by 1989!

R82 I want to throttle you and everyone who has no ability to suspend disbelief in movies and starts picking them apart over inane points like "the leading man had a receding hairline." And Pauline Kael was one of you so the fuck with you both.

Are you the OP, R91 ? your tepid little thread about this half-baked, badly acted flick is dying on the 90th posts hill, don't take it out on Pauline and me. Turner gives a robotic, shitty turn, the movie doesn't make sense, do better

R92 Pauline Kael was a cunt of the highest order. Anyone who agrees with that ghoul has no taste.

Can anybody recommend similarly high quality movies like this. Off the top of my head I can think of Chinatown, the bogart Bacall movies and Last Seductuon. To live and Die in LA I also found sexy and in the similar style to this movie. Don’t just list film noirs. Also Cutter’s Way is the sort of recommendation I’m looking for…

Kathleen Turner was a bit like Yvonne De Carlo in Criss Cross. I felt they had a similar sexy, exotic look.

Here ya go, R94.

thanks to this hot sexy movie I started a wind chime collection ! Drove my neighbors crazy. I especially loved the vintage glass ones . Never liked William Hurt much ,Children of a Lesser God SUCKED ,but he redeemed himself in Kiss of the Spider Woman.

[quote] Kathleen was sort of like a Faye Dunaway of the 80s. Had all those hits.

Yes! That's who she reminds me of.

R94, how about "Presumed Innocent" with Harrison Ford? I'm not a huge fan of HF, but this movie had a really good plot and he was OK in it.

R94 it may not be quite as sexy, but House of Games (c.1987) is noirish and very good. Written and directed by David Mamet

House of Games was uncompromising and brutal. The scene where the female “mark” follows the guy running the con into the bar where he and his crew hang out and she listens as he tells them what it was like to fuck her. Gah! The acting was phenomenal. The screenplay even better. Mamet really immersed himself in that world of con-men and grifters to make a movie that should have won some Oscars.

Dwarf monster Pauline Kael hated any movie where the female was pretty and Turner wasn't just pretty, she was fucking gorgeous and hot as hell.

I just watched it last night. I forgot most of the plot. This is a must watch film. Great Film Noir.

R102 not really true. Who was/is more gorgeous than Michelle Pfeiffer and she loved her. The truth is Turner was never a great actress.

Death Trap with Christopher Reeve is another well-done, suspenseful movie.

Comparing pig nosed Turner and Faye is the worst thing that DL has ever done to our Faye. You little homosexual boys deserve every leaf of lettuce that is coming your way.

That soundtrack was amazing. It was really part of the movie. I love it. Watch it at least once a year. Ned Racine. Perfect name for William Hurt's loser. And Ted Danson was great as his BFF/prosecutor. Richard Crenna, J.A. Preston as Oscar. And yes, Mickey Rourke. (My other favorite Mickey Rourke movie was The Pope of Greenwich Village with Eric Roberts. If you haven't seen it, go. Watch it right now.)

Oh to be a fly on the wall when Turner walked up to Bacall, and declared " I'm the young you"...Apparently is was very ugly

Red Rock West is pretty sexy, darkly funny moder noir.

The Hot Spot.

I'll check out some of these suggestions, but I'm starting my weekend watching Body Heat. Perfect for a Friday night.

Body Heat is a classic rethink of the noir themes from A Postman Always Rings Twice and Double Indemnity. It is universally considered a neo-noir classic 42 years after it came out. Not a false move in the entire film which is damn amazing for a first-time director.

Larry Kasdan was BFFs with Spielberg and Lucas.

The Last Seduction with Linda Fiorentino, Peter Berg, and Bill Pullman

The femme fetal in Body Heat is why I’m pro-abortion.

R115, Oh Dear. Fatale!

I'm watching it RIGHT NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Heads up Datalounge. Body Heat is on TCM right now.

So I just watched for the first time and enjoyed it. Agree Kathleen was stunning and William was very fuckable. Loved the scene where he stripped off his sweaty socks while being questioned by his two buddies following the murder.

Can I ask, when the little girl is describing the man with her Aunt, are we to guess that's Ned's cock she's saying is 7-8 inches and bald?!

I recommend The Zero Effect, R-whatever upthread.

Tricky mystery, funny, everyone I have recommended it to over the years has loved it. Bill Pullman is the world's greatest detective and a hot mess. Zoolander (always forget his name) is his assistant/sidekick. It's a very clever film.

"Body Heat" was Kasdan's first and best film as a director. All his films seem to have a flat quality, but it works her as part of the neo-noir tableaux. The cast here really works, as they are engaging as an ensemble. He never really achieved that again.

Just think, if he'd never bumped into her lookalike he never would have figured out she was an imposter

Another vote for perfect movie, everything and everybody works, though i think Turner, her performance (which could be tricky with some of her lies) and her “body” is key. Perfect ending as well, nicely ambiguous, does she have regrets or is simply bored in the hot sun.

R86, conversely I don’t find the end of The War of the Roses ambiguous. From the moment midfilm when she starts to loathe her husband, she does not turn back, unlike him who continues to ask for her approbation and love. She rejects him even when they are both dying.

I guess I can see how people find Turner beautiful, but like the posters upthread, I don't find her attractive. Her nose is wide and her features bland. Nothing about her looks really stands out as extraordinary. I find her acting merely adequate. Compared to her talented contemporaries (Michelle Pfeiffer, Sissy Spacek, e.g.), she offers little of interest to me.

She also seems to have a gigantic ego.

^ Oh, yeah, the movie was notable mainly for the sex scenes, which were pretty daring for '81. Agree Rourke was the greatest asset.

Like Bacall, she wasn't conventionally attractive but you can't take your eyes off of her.

Was the niece describing Hurt's cock or was Aunty sucking someone else?!