Dressed to Kill is a typically hysterical film by Brian De Palma with one of the great opening scenes in movies. To survive unpleasant, unsatisfying sex with her husband, Angie Dickinson fantasizes about touching herself in the shower while gazing upon a hunk shaving in the bathroom mirror. As she builds to climax, a rapist grabs her from behind, her shaving hunk unaware of the violence behind the shower door.
De Palma was never a master of dialogue, but his camera work is usually striking and his close-ups in this scene make it more erotic than Hollywood usually allows. In fact, he was forced to cut a few below-the-waist shots to avoid an X rating - something he fought against passionately but lost.
The DVD has a bonus clip splitscreen of the theatrical R rated version underneath the original version, pubic hair and all. It's enlightening in all the right ways, and the splitscreen is somehow more erotic than the individual clips because you don't know what to focus on (a sensation often experienced at orgies).
For the benefit of humanity, I've posted it - where do your eyes fall?
De Palma was never a master of dialogue, but his camera work is usually striking and his close-ups in this scene make it more erotic than Hollywood usually allows. In fact, he was forced to cut a few below-the-waist shots to avoid an X rating - something he fought against passionately but lost.
The DVD has a bonus clip splitscreen of the theatrical R rated version underneath the original version, pubic hair and all. It's enlightening in all the right ways, and the splitscreen is somehow more erotic than the individual clips because you don't know what to focus on (a sensation often experienced at orgies).
For the benefit of humanity, I've posted it - where do your eyes fall?
Dressed To Kill Unrated vs RRated from Dave Smoota Smith on Vimeo.
Angie Dickinson was 48 when Dressed to Kill was filmed, and she is the best part of the movie. It was exposed that Dickinson used a body double in the shower scene (playmate Victoria Johnson), but that doesn't diminish her striking portrayal of a strong 48 year old female sex drive. If more movies were this honest, getting older wouldn't seem so bad.