Movies / Obsession (1976)
Runtime: 98 min
Genres: Drama Mystery Thriller
Countries: USA
Though he had made comedies with Robert De Niro (Hi Mom, Greetings!), a horror movie (Sisters), and a rock musical (Phantom of the Paradise), it wasn't until this 1976 film that Brian De Palma truly announced himself as the heir to Alfred Hitchcock. Written by Paul Schrader, this film is an homage to Vertigo, with its own stylish twists and turns. Cliff Robertson plays a businessman who, while traveling in Italy, meets a young woman (Genevieve Bujold) who is a dead ringer for his late wife, who had been killed in a kidnapping years earlier. As he woos and wins her, the vibes get creepier and creepier because, well, something's not right about this woman. Interestingly, this film came out the same year as De Palma's Carrie, a much more successful movie at the box office. But it was this movie that, for all its flaws, proclaimed De Palma as a stylist with a sure-handed command of visual storytelling. --Marshall Fine
Keywords (32) |
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neo noir con artist hitchcockian business trip widower counterfeit money mistaken identity suicide attempt wedding anniversary ransom note More Keywords » |
Directors (1) | Credit |
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Brian De Palma | ... |
Writers (2) | Credit |
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Brian De Palma | story |
Paul Schrader | story |
Composers (1) | Credit |
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Bernard Herrmann | ... |
Editors (1) | Credit |
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Paul Hirsch | ... |
Cinematographers (1) | Credit |
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Vilmos Zsigmond | ... |
Actors (21) | Credit |
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Andrea Esterhazy | D'Annunzio |
Cliff Robertson | Michael Courtland |
Clyde Ventura | Ticket Agent |
Don Hood | Ferguson |
Fain M. Cogrove | Secretary |
Geneviève Bujold | Elizabeth Courtland / Sandra Portinari |
John Creamer | Justice of the Peace |
John Lithgow | Robert Lasalle |
J. Patrick McNamara | Third Kidnapper (as Patrick McNamara) |
Loraine Despres | Jane |
Nella Simoncini Barbieri | Mrs. Portinari |
Nick Kreiger | Farber (as Nick Krieger) |
Regis Cordic | Newscaster |
Robert Harper | Man In Airport (uncredited) |
Stanley J. Reyes | Insp. Brie |
Stocker Fontelieu | Dr. Ellman |
Sylvia Kuumba Williams | Maid (as Sylvia "Kuumba" Williams) |
Thomas Carr | Paper Boy |
Tom Felleghy | Italian Businessman |
Wanda Blackman | Amy Courtland |
Warren Kenner | (uncredited) |