Body Heat (1981)

erotic thriller
directed by : Lawrence Kasdan
featuring : William Hurt - Kathleen Turner - Richard Crenna - Ted Danson - Mickey Rourke
running time : 1 hour 53 minutes
Lawrence Kasdan's first directorial effort is a throwback to the early days of film noir. The scene is a beastly hot Florida coastal town, where naive attorney Ned (William Hurt) is entranced by the alluring Matty (Kathleen Turner in her film debut). Ned is manipulated into killing Matty's much older husband (Richard Orenna), the plan being that Ned's knowledge of legal matters will enable both conspirators to escape scott-free. This might have been the case, had not Matty been infinitely craftier than the cloddish Ned. Just when it seems as though the film has run out of plot twists, we're handed yet another surprise.

It's very warm in the stuffy interiors of this thinly disguised remake of Double Indemnity, Kathleen Turner is so sultry in this Deep South film noir potboiler that it's hard to imagine that this was her first starring role. She plays a devious wife who spins a web that traps a naïve, mesmerized lawyer (Hurt) in a scheme to kill her husband. Writer-director Kasdan, in his directorial debut, keeps the suspense and eroticism at full power, with plot twists aplenty. He expertly uses the heat of the coastal Florida milieu; the film practically sweats. The film launched the careers of Turner and Kasdan and jump-started a noir revival. Ted Danson, Mickey Rourke, and Richard Crenna provide solid support. Kasdan, Turner, and Hurt reunited in 1988 for The Accidental Tourist.