Counting Down the Greatest Crime Films of All-Time: # 26

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Body Heat (1981)

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YPE OF FILM: Noir

STUDIO: Ladd Company/Warner Brothers

PRODUCER: Fred T. Gallo

DIRECTOR: Lawrence Kasdan

SCREENWRITER: Lawrence Kasdan

SOURCE: Original story

RUNNING TIME: 113 minutes

PRINCIPAL PLAYERS:

William Hurt……………………………………………………………………………Ned Racine

Kathleen Turner…………………………………………………………….………..Matty Walker

Richard Crenna…………………………………………………………………….Edmund Walker

Ted Danson………………………………………………………………………Peter Lowenstein

Mickey Rourke………………………………………………………………….…….Teddy Lewis

J.A. Preston…………………………………………………………………………….Oscar Grace

Kim Zimmer……………………………………………………………………Mary Ann Simpson

Jane Halleran……………………………………………………………………….…………Stella

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DID YOU KNOW?

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Kathleen Turner, the sexy black widow of Body Heat, makes her screen debut as the star of this very successful noir film. Amazingly, the superbly written and directed motion picture is also the first effort of Lawrence Kasdan, who fulfilled both roles. Kasdan’s wife, Meg, also had a small role as a nurse.

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THE STORY

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Ned Racine, a notoriously incompetent lawyer and the town rake, spots the shapely Matty Walker and goes after her with nearly immediate success. They begin a torrid affair that culminates in a plan to murder her husband, which will enable them to be together always and also, not so incidentally, allow her to claim a small fortune as his widow. Together they plan to carry out a near perfect crime, against the advice of Teddy Lewis, a small-time crook and expert bomb-maker whom Racine once kept out of jail. Lewis tells him that fifty things can go wrong when you plan arson, and a genius can think of and avoid twenty-five of them. “And believe me,” he tells the lawyer. “you’re no genius.”

Lewis is right, of course, and local cop Oscar Grace discovers small problems and oversights that point to Matty as the killer. However, all the missteps eventually lead Grace away from her and toward Ned.

When the ruthless Matty sends Ned to a booby-trapped boathouse, Racine realizes that he has been set up and double-crossed by his lover. He forces her to open the door that will explode the bomb, and as he waits in the darkness, she walks to the trap and sets off a huge explosion. He is arrested and, while lying awake one night, has an inspiration: She’s alive!

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BEST LINE

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Racine flirts with Matty Walker, and she reminds him that she’s married and not interested. He pursues her. Finally, she says to him, “You’re not too smart, are you? I like that in a man.”