A pointer from Peter Sobczynksi's review of Verity (2026) and some Brian De Palma completism. Notionally a psychosexual/erotic thriller and it is indeed prurient and lurid, ploughing the track for not only Basic Instinct (1992) (amongst many others) but also The Silence of the Lambs (1991).
The movie is split into halves with a thick seam in the middle, bridged somewhat by Michael Caine's shrink in one of his blander performances. The first is languid, focussing on clotheshorse/socialite/housewife Angie Dickinson (Rio Bravo (1959)) who is all hot and bothered in NYC. The scenes of her looking for some attention in an art gallery mostly work before it degenerates into a slasher. Last/call girl Nancy Allen (the Mrs De Palma of the day, The Last Detail (1973), Robocop (1987)) takes over and proceeds to run around trying to crack the case while avoiding the same fate. The late exposition dump was very unwelcome, as was the concluding "it was only a dream" bookend scene. Somehow she (and De Palma) didn't go all Mrs Robinson (1967) over gifted geek/mama's boy Keith Gordon.
Dickinson got the harder task and the better end of the movie, but her efforts to draw attention to the fine details of her activities (the frustrated discarding of a lonesome glove, a missing wedding ring, a letter diagnosing VD) seem misplaced in this very unsubtle production. Getting bored with what I was shown (so many scenes linger, trying to amp the tension) I started to wonder if De Palma wasn't also trying to play identity games ala David Lynch's far superior Mulholland Drive (2001). But the ladies are all blondes.
Roger Ebert: three stars. De Palma was trying to mime the Hitchcock style. Vincent Canby. IMDB trivia. Enough body doubles to confuse everything.
