Body Heat
白いドレスの女
Storyline
The whole story, ending included.
A Florida heatwave, a lawyer and a married woman who is always one move ahead; the neo-noir that revived the femme fatale.
In the heavy heat of South Florida, Ned Racine, a lazy, womanising small-town lawyer, begins an affair with Matty Walker, the young wife of Edmund, a rich and shady businessman. The affair consumes them. Matty says she would divorce Edmund, but a prenuptial agreement would leave her nothing; she wishes him dead, and it is Ned who proposes killing him. When she talks of forging a new will, he warns her it would draw suspicion. Over dinner with the two of them, Edmund remarks that he would kill any man who slept with his wife.
With help from an old client, Teddy Lewis, an arsonist, Ned fakes an alibi by checking into a Miami hotel and driving back in the night. He kills Edmund, and he and Matty move the body to an empty building Edmund owned, which Ned sets on fire to mislead the police. They agree to stay apart until the estate is settled.
Then Edmund's lawyer calls about a new will, supposedly drawn up by Ned and witnessed by a Mary Ann Simpson, a woman Ned once met at the Walkers' house who has since vanished. The will is badly drafted, the judge throws it out, and Matty inherits everything. Ned realises she forged it knowing it would fail. His friends, the prosecutor Peter Lowenstein and the detective Oscar Grace, suspect her and warn him off, and his alibi begins to crumble. He learns that an acquaintance recommended him to Matty months before their supposedly chance meeting, and Teddy tells him a woman has asked how to booby-trap a door. Matty sends Ned to her boathouse to collect Edmund's missing glasses. He sees a wire on the door and asks her to go instead. Telling him that whatever happens she loves him, she walks towards the boathouse, and it explodes. The body is identified as hers.
In prison, Ned tries to convince Oscar that she is alive. A high-school yearbook proves him right: the woman he knew as Matty was Mary Ann Simpson, who had taken the name of her classmate Matty Tyler, and the body was the real Matty's. Under Mary Ann's photograph is her ambition, to be rich and live in an exotic land. The last shot finds her on a tropical beach.
Starring
William Hurtas Ned Racine
A lazy, womanising small-town lawyer who falls so hard for Matty that he proposes killing her husband.
Ned Racine’s story
Ned drifts through a South Florida summer, a lawyer the judge thinks little of, until he meets Matty. When she wishes her husband dead, it is Ned who proposes murder. He warns her against forging a will, gets a firebomb from Teddy, an old client, fakes an alibi in Miami and kills Edmund. Then a new will turns up, drafted in his name, and he sees she forged it knowing it would fail. His friends Lowenstein and Grace begin to suspect him; he learns he was recommended to her months before they met, and that a woman has asked Teddy for a bomb set off by a door. At the boathouse he sees the wire and lets her go in. In prison a school yearbook proves she is alive, and Grace reminds him that he did kill Edmund.
Kathleen Turneras Matty Walker
A rich man's young wife who draws Ned into an affair and a murder, and is always a step ahead of him.
Matty Walker’s story
Matty tells Ned that a prenuptial agreement would leave her nothing in a divorce, and says she wishes Edmund dead; it is Ned who proposes murder. She talks of forging a will, and he warns her off. After the killing a will appears anyway, drafted in Ned's name and witnessed by a Mary Ann Simpson; when the judge throws it out, she inherits everything. She begs Ned's forgiveness and swears she loves him. Then she sends him to her boathouse for Edmund's missing glasses, tells him that whatever happens she loves him, and walks towards the door herself; the boathouse explodes. The body is identified as hers, but it is not. She is Mary Ann Simpson, who took her classmate Matty Tyler's name, and she ends on a tropical beach, rich, as her yearbook said she would be.
Richard Crennaas Edmund Walker
Matty's wealthy, shady husband, who says he would kill any man who slept with his wife.
Ted Dansonas Peter Lowenstein
A prosecutor and Ned's friend, who suspects Matty and warns Ned to keep away from her.
Mickey Rourkeas Teddy Lewis
An arsonist and Ned's former client, who helps him and later warns him about a woman's request.
Why it matters
Body Heat takes the oldest question in film noir, what a man will do for a woman he wants, and turns it round: the woman has been planning it all along. Lawrence Kasdan, directing for the first time, drew openly on Double Indemnity, and a critic writing for Turner Classic Movies later called it arguably the first conscious neo-noir. It launched Kathleen Turner. Roger Ebert, adding it to his Great Movies, wrote that she played a woman so sexually confident that her lover could be dazed into doing almost anything for her; Pauline Kael and Janet Maslin were unimpressed. What the film leaves is uncomfortable from both sides. Ned is a willing killer who comes to see himself as the victim of a seduction. Matty is the cleverest person in the story, and the film can imagine her intelligence only as predatory. Its last shot gives her exactly what she wrote down as a schoolgirl.