Play Misty for Me (1971)

User Rating:

7.0/10   

Director:

Clint Eastwood

Writers:

Jo Heims (story)
Jo Heims (screenplay) ...

Release Date:

12 November 1971 (USA)

Genre:

Crime | Drama | Romance | Thriller

Tagline:

The scream you hear may be your own!

Plot:

A brief fling between a male disc jockey and an obsessed female fan takes a frightening, and perhaps even deadly turn when another woman enters the picture.

Plot Keywords:

Disc Jockey | Obsessed Fan | Monterey Jazz Festival | Steak | Jazz Band

Awards:

Nominated for Golden Globe.

Cast

Clint Eastwood	...	Dave
Jessica Walter	...	Evelyn
Donna Mills	...	Tobie
John Larch	...	Sgt. McCallum
Jack Ging	...	Frank
Irene Hervey	...	Madge
James McEachin	...	Al Monte
Clarice Taylor	...	Birdie
Don Siegel	...	Murphy (as Donald Siegel)
Duke Everts	...	Jay Jay
George Fargo	...	Man
Mervin W. Frates	...	Locksmith
Tim Frawley	...	Deputy Sheriff
Otis Kadani	...	Policeman
Brit Lind	...	Anjelica

Runtime:

102 min | Portugal:96 min (TV version)

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Westrex Recording System)

Certification:

Iceland:12 | Argentina:16 | Australia:M | Finland:K-16 | Norway:16 | Singapore:M18 | South Korea:18 | Spain:18 | Sweden:15 | UK:15 (video re-rating) (2002) | UK:18 (video rating) (1985) | UK:X (original rating) | USA:R (Certificate #22848) | West Germany:18

Filming Locations:

Big Sur, California, USA

Company:

Universal Pictures

Trivia:

Set in Carmel, CA, where Clint Eastwood lived and became mayor in 1986.

Goofs:

Factual errors: When DJ Dave Garver leaves the radio station KRML to go rescue Tobie, he puts on a 5" demo/air check reel on the tape recorder. A reel of this size could hold, at maximum, 600 ft. of tape. Playing at 7 1/2 ips (which is the speed most radio station recorders recorded/played music back at using 2 channel, 2 track recording - common for commercial/broadcast recorders), this would have given only 15 minutes of recorded music/voice before the tape ran out and "dead air" would have been transmitted from the station. Yet, Dave Garver made reference to Sgt. McCallum that Tobie lived way outside of town. The movie also conveys the driving time Dave Garver took to get to Tobie's house. Considering that, the fight scene at the house and when he leaves the house with Tobie at the end his request to play Misty is heard over the air, Dave would have had to mount a 10" reel containing 3600 ft. of tape (1.5 hours of recording at 7 1/2 ips). Radio stations would normally have had such reels for recording entire shows. They are not used for demo/air check tapes.

Quotes:

Man in window: People trying to sleep here!
Evelyn: People trying to talk here!
Man in window: How'd you like to tell it to the law?
Evelyn: How'd you like to go screw yourself?

Movie Connections:

Referenced in A Decade Under the Influence (2003)

Soundtrack:

Willie and the Hand Jive

An impressive psychological thriller

This is quite an impressive, very 70s looking psycho-thriller that is sure to please.

Clint Eastwood plays Dave Garver, a radio DJ in southern California. One night, a woman calls requesting that he "Play Misty for me." Later, he meets the woman at a bar he goes to often, and they go back to her house together and make love. The next morning, he leaves, figuring it was just a one-night stand, but when he gets home, the woman, Evelyn Draper (Jessica Walter) shows up with groceries and starts to make herself at home. Dave decides to go with it, and later sees that his old girlfriend, Tobie Williams (Donna Mills), is back in town, and the two become close again. But Evelyn won't go away, and continues to follow Dave everywhere, and starts to get viciously jealous of Tobie. And as Dave and Tobie's relationship forms, Evelyn becomes angry and violent, and eventually, murderous, and Dave must find some way to stop her before she ruins his life, and potentially, kills him.

A very creepy movie. Jessica Walter is beyond convincing as the jealous psycho lover, and Clint Eastwood proves that he doesn't just do Dirty Harry movies. Donna Mills is also quite good as the innocent girlfriend. The movie implies and foreshadows a lot, making everything even scarier. But the best scene in the whole movie is the knife attack on the maid, Birdie. That scene competes with the shower scene in "Psycho" as one of the most shocking in film history. The way the camera darts and swings around, and Birdie's screams as she struggles and fights to get away, all add up to one of the scariest scenes I've every seen. The climax is quite good, if not executed a little too quickly, but what led to it was shocking enough to overshadow it.

All in all, a great film that I would definitely recommend.