Body Heat

Body Heat (Lawrence Kasdan, 1985) "It's hot."

Oh, man, you have GOT to be careful what you wish for!

A little history: after selling his second script*, Continental Divide to Steven Spielberg, the director brought Kasdan in to re-work the script of Raiders of the Lost Ark (lest we forget, the first Indiana Jones movie), whose work so impressed Executive Producer George Lucas, he brought Kasdan on to re-tool Leigh Brackett's script for The Empire Strikes Back, then again for the trilogy finale The Revenge Return of the Jedi, with one particular bargaining chip played between Episodes V and VI.

That bargaining chip happened to be Body Heat. First-time director Kasdan (with some behind the scenes anonymous studio support by Lucas to assuage nervous studio chiefs) did a full-color update of James M. Cain for the "me decade" and, in so doing, made one deliberately horny—smart, but horny (the two are much more often than not mutually exclusive!)—movie.

Ned Racine (William Hurt) is nobody's idea of a decent attorney, as he takes as much care with his lovers as he does with his cases—very little—as he's all surface and no depth—one judge tells him he hopes the next time he comes into his court he has a better defense "or a better class of client". Ouch! Burn! Maybe that's why it happens, a search for a better class of...anything. At an outdoor concert in the middle of a blistering Florida heat wave, he meets Mattie Walker (Kathleen Turner, in her film debut channeling the young Lauren Bacall, in her film debut), who is the answer to his prayers—if he did any praying.  He's all fancy patter and pick-up lines, but she's not too impressed. "You're not very bright, are you? I like that in a man," she husks. 

"What else do you like? Lazy? Ugly? Horny? I got 'em all."

"You don't look lazy," she cracks.

She's smart. He thinks he's smart. She's classy and he's a lawyer, who rarely gets an encounter with that quality. Racine is a small fish in a fetid pond—more of a bottom-feeder, really, but he thinks of himself as a big fish in a small pond, and his clients match his tactics. But, he has delusions of grandeur, given his ego, so he's constantly trolling for a step up to show the world how much better he is than his work would indicate.

So, imagine his good fortune at meeting Matty. She's everything he's not—classic and classy. But, he's more interested in what they have in common—they're both horny and they're both interested in him. What's not to like, after all? What could possibly go wrong? And Ned is always quick with a good line that feels self-deprecating: "I need somebody to take care of me, someone to rub my tired muscles, smooth out my sheets." "Get married", she counters. "I only need it for tonight!" It makes her laugh.

Matty is well-regarded in the community. Perhaps too well-regarded. When the two meet later (by accident?) at a local watering hole, Ned notices a table of men who keep watching her—rejects who have tried to last in the stool neighboring hers. They're all wash-outs with obvious lines and obvious hunger. But, Ned plays it a little cooler in the Florida heat and as her temperature runs a little bit above normal, so she decides to let him follow her to her house to "hear my wind-chimes" that deceptively ring that there might be a breeze, but there never is..."just hot air."

After feigning an argument for the yokels to think they're not leaving together, Ned follows Matty home, but he's a little too aggressive, and she retreats to her mansion. But, she stays in sight, heaving, waiting, and Ned passes the "lean-and-hungry" test by using some of her lawn furniture to to smash through the glass door, and they begin a torrid affair—her husband (Richard Crenna), who's a fixer of some kind, is out of town, and as long as they're discreet and keep it out of sight, they have the run of the place.

But, Matty's unhappy. She hates her husband, even though he's provided a good life-style, and would like him out of it—her life-style, I mean. And Ned's a lawyer, so if hubby can be eliminated and Ned can "fix" the will, they can enjoy the freedom they have become accustomed to. Pretty soon, she's convinced Ned that he can make it happen, even though he's warned by an ex-client of his (played by Mickey Rourke, very early in his career):

I got a serious question for you: What the fuck are you doing? This is not shit for you to be messin' with. Are you ready to hear something? I want you to see if this sounds familiar: any time you try a decent crime, you got fifty ways you're gonna fuck up. If you think of twenty-five of them, then you're a genius... and you ain't no genius. You remember who told me that?

It was Ned, of course, and he can only nod. It's not that Ned is stupid—he passed the bar, after all—it's just that he's not thinking with his brain, but with another organ. And once he's involved up to his hips, he doesn't realize that he's going to be sinking even further, to an outcome that's more in keeping with his clientele behind bars, putting him in a class that he's never seen himself part of, and never thought of for himself.

Kasdan's script is clever, full of quotable lines** and a pay-off that you just don't see coming, despite the fact that he's working with recycled material here, albeit one for a time in which characters are allowed to "get away with" things without some retribution from the law or Higher Powers, making it stand out from other "two's company-three's a potential felony" type of film-noir. And for a first-time director, Kasdan is very assured, keeping things erotic, but just ever-so-suggestively out of "X" territory (no frontal nudity below the waist and a lot of "backal" nudity), with a nice sense of understated lighting, helped by the efforts of Richard Kline, who rarely was given a chance to do something understated—or underlit—in his previous work. And John Barry's score, deep in his "slower temp" phase, evoked those wind chimes with a smarmy saxophone overlay that, by itself, made you feel like you should take a shower afterwards.

And the actors—particularly Turner and Hurt—are just plain brave, playing characters who are hiding weaknesses and unspoken thoughts while very frequently being physically exposed. It's a high-wire act in the nude. And if the noir side of movies, seem very American and very cynical, this one makes the others look like musicals. Even more for the fact that it's one of those stories where naked ambition is rewarded (or thwarted) by whoever is the wiliest of the bunch, and willing—in the words of the murder victim in the story—"to do what's necessary. Whatever it takes."

Body Heat does follow any moral code or religious stricture. It's playing by the rules of Darwin: survival of the fittest.

It's a smart movie. And..."it's hot."

* The first was The Bodyguard, which was eventually made with Kevin Costner and Whitney Huston.

** My favorite: At a hearing, one of the lawyers says "Would anyone mind if I smoked?" and everybody starts pulling out their cigarettes with the lone exception of Racine friend Peter Lowenstein (a pre-"Cheers" Ted Danson), who, when he's offered one says: "No thanks, I'll just breathe the air..."