Movies / Obsession (1976)

7/10

Runtime: 98 min

Genres: Drama Mystery Thriller

Languages: English Italian

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


Directors (1) Credit
Brian De Palma ...
Writers (2) Credit
Brian De Palma story
Paul Schrader story
Composers (1) Credit
Bernard Herrmann ...
Editors (1) Credit
Paul Hirsch ...
Cinematographers (1) Credit
Vilmos Zsigmond ...
Actors (21) Credit
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)