Body Heat (1981)

This review is sponsored by

BUY IT

General		Extras
Category	Thriller	Biographies-Cast & Crew Production Notes Theatrical Trailer-1:35 Notes-Reel Recommendations
Rating
Year Of Production	1981
Running Time	108:36
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Programme
Region Coding	4	Directed By	Lawrence Kasdan
Studio Distributor	Warner Home Video	Starring	William Hurt Kathleen Turner Richard Crenna Ted Danson J.A. Preston Mickey Rourke
Case	Amaray-Transparent
RPI	$24.95	Music	John Barry

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 5.1 (384Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.78:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	1.85:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English Arabic English for the Hearing Impaired	Smoking	Yes, extensive
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    Body Heat is set in Florida, in a heat wave. The humidity in Florida in summer is hard to take, but add in a heat wave - eesh! Oscar (J.A. Preston), a police detective, suggests that people do strange things in a heatwave: "when it gets hot, people try to kill each other", "they think the ordinary rules don't apply". If you have a body that runs a degree or two hotter than normal, like Matty Tyler Walker (Kathleen Turner), then you have to expect really strange behaviour.

    Our central character is Ned Racine (William Hurt) - a small-town, small-time, lawyer. We meet him being berated by a judge for putting up a lousy defence, and being told to accept the offer from Assistant Prosecutor Lowenstein (Ted Danson in glasses - pre-Cheers).

    Ned spots a gorgeous woman (Kathleen Turner) one evening, and tries to chat her up. They flirt, and she vanishes. He looks for her, tracks her down, and they seduce one another. This is the start of a torrid relationship. Problem is that she's married to a rich man, and she signed a pre-nuptial agreement, so a divorce would mean she'd be left pretty much penniless. Clearly her husband should die, leaving his money to her, so they can live happily ever after...

    Matty comes across as gorgeous, intelligent and provocative - the most similar character I can think of is Catherine Tramell from Basic Instinct, although Matty isn't quite as intelligent. Both women have that smouldering intensity - it's easy to see what attracts Ned to her like a moth to a flame.

    It is hard to believe that this was Kathleen Turner's first feature film, and yet, the fact that she spends quite a considerable part of the film naked (tastefully so, of course) might have put a more seasoned actress off the role. Strangely enough, one of the most erotically-charged scenes is the first one, where she has the most clothing on.

    It is equally hard to believe that this was Lawrence Kasdan's directorial debut. Since then he has made some impressive films, including The Big Chill and The Accidental Tourist, and some quirky little pieces, like Continental Divide.

    Providing you don't mind the nudity, and the amoral attitudes, this is a nicely made piece of modern film noir, with a perfect smoky jazz soundtrack behind it. I recommend it.

Video

    For a film made in 1981, this movie is in good condition.

    The DVD is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.78:1, 16x9 enhanced, but the theatrical aspect ratio was 1.85:1 - acceptable, but not perfect.

    The picture is reasonably sharp - it's one of those transfers that's sharper in close-ups than in longer shots (I suspect this is an artefact of the MPEG encoder used). Shadow detail is generally quite good, although a few scenes display an over-quick drop off into black. There's no low-level noise. There is one scene, around 34:07, where blacks are rendered more as dark grey, but I doubt we can blame the transfer for that. Similarly, there's a shot at 35:31 that's distinctly out of focus (perhaps distinct is the wrong word...). The presence of fog and mist, even though it is authentic, in many of the night time scenes doesn't help.

    Colour is rather good, displaying some well-saturated tones, with moments of gorgeous rich colours. For some reason, the scenes in Stella's diner display light intensity through the windows that is way too high - turning the windows glowing white, bleeding into the surroundings. This is not unique to this film - a number of films from this period (and earlier) have the same characteristic - something to do with the film stock, perhaps?

    There are quite a few film artefacts, but few that are more than a tiny spot or fleck - perhaps the most noticeable being a small white patch at 42:03. There's plenty of aliasing, but it is fairly well controlled. There's no serious moire. There's some background shimmer, but no other MPEG artefacts. Overall, this is a reasonably clean transfer, but not the best.

    There are subtitles in English and Arabic. In English we get both subtitles and captions. They are a little over-abbreviated in spots, but reasonably accurate, and well-timed. They are easy to read.

    The disc is single sided and single layered. Thus, there is no layer change. Maybe if they'd given it two layers, there'd be no aliasing, and no shimmer - maybe it's a little over-compressed. Hard to tell.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    The soundtrack is presented in English, in Dolby Digital 5.1. That's what I listened to.

    The dialogue is clear and easily understood with no audio sync problems.

    The score is excellent - the film is very much enhanced by it. John Barry (his profile boasts of having scored 12 out of 18 James Bond films) has done a wonderful job.

    The soundtrack is 5.1, but it is a front-dominant effort - you won't hear anything significant from the surrounds. That's OK - this movie sounds just fine. The subwoofer is not heavily used, but it provides occasional emphasis - you wouldn't miss it if you didn't have one.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Menu

    The menu is static and silent. When you drop the disc in, it starts to play automatically, so you may not need to worry much about the menu.

Cast and Crew 

    There are profiles for eight people (a total of 30 pages):

• William Hurt
• Kathleen Turner
• Richard Crenna
• Ted Danson
• J.A. Preston
• Mickey Rourke
• John Barry
• Lawrence Kasdan

Behind the Scenes 

    This is not the making-of featurette I expected - it is just four pages of notes.

Recommendations 

    Three pages of recommendations - divided into one page for actor (all of one film!), and two for genre.

Theatrical Trailer (1:35) 

    There are some loud noises in this trailer - you might want to drop the volume a little. It's quite grainy.

    The R4 version of this disc is missing

• full-screen presentation on the flip side

    The R1 version of this disc is missing:

• nothing

    Apart from the full-screen presentation on the flip side (I prefer to have a label), the two discs sound to be identical, even down to the quality of the transfer. The R1 is in a snapper case - we get a transparent Amaray - that's a definite score for the R4.

    Body Heat is a good film presented reasonably well on DVD.

    The video quality is mostly quite good.

    The audio quality is fine, albeit a frontal soundstage mix.

    The extras are rudimentary.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall