Lauren Bacall plays Sally Ross, a screen and stage legend who is the object of affection and obsession of a deranged and isolated record store clerk, Douglas (Michael Biehn) in New York City. After Sally's assistant shirks Douglas's increasingly explicit fan letters, he plots to eliminate those around Sally in order to finally have her on his own terms.
This Paramount horror-thriller was panned by critics in 1981 and was a subject of hot debate given its release shortly after the murder of John Lennon at the hands of a deranged fan— in a weird twist of fate, Lennon was killed outside his residence at the Dakota, where Bacall was also a longtime resident until her death this past year.
Politics aside, "The Fan" is a straightforward psychothriller by most accounts, and makes no bones about its villain— he is simply an obsessive recluse who lives in a fantasy world in which a celebrity makes up the center of his universe— the boy whose interior fantasies prove too intense and too close for comfort.
The self-reflexive aspect of Bacall's role here as a glamorous actress from old Hollywood certainly plays into the film on many levels— the character of Sally is as much Sally as she is Bacall herself. We see multiple publicity photos of her from her early career, and references to real events in her own life abound (such as her infamous resting atop Harry Truman's piano), and these elements make the film a real treat for Bacall's fans.
James Garner supports her as a rather one-dimensional ex-husband, with Maureen Stapleton as her bumbling, dependable assistant. Michael Biehn rises to the challenge here and is impressive as the film's villain, managing to capture a psychological scariness that operates in place of his rather nonthreatening physicality. He is scary not because of how he looks, but because of his thoughts and their inevitable executions, and Biehn brings that out very well.
The film has been criticized for being gratuitous in terms of how it handles its violent scenes, and while the film does show us a bit of bloodshed, it does not quite edge into the exploitative territory of a slasher. It is admittedly violent, but is not over-the-top, even by the era's standards. Pino Donaggio's score adds a sinister flair to key scenes, especially the subway stalking.
The final showdown is well-played if not a bit anticlimactic, but it really gives Bacall some especially physical screen-time that is a far cry from her more classic roles in "Written on the Wind," and the films she made with Humphrey Bogart.
Overall, "The Fan" is, at the end of the day, a fairly straightforward thriller with little in the way of surprise— in other words, it plays out exactly as you'd expect it to. That said, it's worth seeing for Bacall's performance alone, which is what the whole film really hinges on: the glamorous actress playing the glamorous actress as a victim of celebrity obsession. Without this element, the film is relatively unremarkable, and while there are several other actresses of Bacall's rank who could have pulled off this role just as well, it seems like it was tailor-made for her— because it probably was. There is a self-awareness about her performance in the film that makes watching her ward off a serial killer with a straight razor irrefutably fun. 7/10.
This Paramount horror-thriller was panned by critics in 1981 and was a subject of hot debate given its release shortly after the murder of John Lennon at the hands of a deranged fan— in a weird twist of fate, Lennon was killed outside his residence at the Dakota, where Bacall was also a longtime resident until her death this past year.
Politics aside, "The Fan" is a straightforward psychothriller by most accounts, and makes no bones about its villain— he is simply an obsessive recluse who lives in a fantasy world in which a celebrity makes up the center of his universe— the boy whose interior fantasies prove too intense and too close for comfort.
The self-reflexive aspect of Bacall's role here as a glamorous actress from old Hollywood certainly plays into the film on many levels— the character of Sally is as much Sally as she is Bacall herself. We see multiple publicity photos of her from her early career, and references to real events in her own life abound (such as her infamous resting atop Harry Truman's piano), and these elements make the film a real treat for Bacall's fans.
James Garner supports her as a rather one-dimensional ex-husband, with Maureen Stapleton as her bumbling, dependable assistant. Michael Biehn rises to the challenge here and is impressive as the film's villain, managing to capture a psychological scariness that operates in place of his rather nonthreatening physicality. He is scary not because of how he looks, but because of his thoughts and their inevitable executions, and Biehn brings that out very well.
The film has been criticized for being gratuitous in terms of how it handles its violent scenes, and while the film does show us a bit of bloodshed, it does not quite edge into the exploitative territory of a slasher. It is admittedly violent, but is not over-the-top, even by the era's standards. Pino Donaggio's score adds a sinister flair to key scenes, especially the subway stalking.
The final showdown is well-played if not a bit anticlimactic, but it really gives Bacall some especially physical screen-time that is a far cry from her more classic roles in "Written on the Wind," and the films she made with Humphrey Bogart.
Overall, "The Fan" is, at the end of the day, a fairly straightforward thriller with little in the way of surprise— in other words, it plays out exactly as you'd expect it to. That said, it's worth seeing for Bacall's performance alone, which is what the whole film really hinges on: the glamorous actress playing the glamorous actress as a victim of celebrity obsession. Without this element, the film is relatively unremarkable, and while there are several other actresses of Bacall's rank who could have pulled off this role just as well, it seems like it was tailor-made for her— because it probably was. There is a self-awareness about her performance in the film that makes watching her ward off a serial killer with a straight razor irrefutably fun. 7/10.