"The Fan" (1981)

When I was young, I was afraid that some guy with whom I was having sex would kill me to make sure his "secret" was safe.

I used to be afraid of exactly what happened in that clip.

That and I used to not suck cock because I was afraid they would piss in my mouth as a prank just to be funny.

Then again, this was when I was 12-16 years old and frequenting cruisy places. I won't even begin to address the pervs willing to fool around with a child my age at the time (no matter how much I obviously wanted it).

Lauren was beautiful in this film.

Please R2, Bacall had officially descended into hagdom way before this film. Maureen Stapleton is a hoot in it though.

It's hardly a thriller, more like a early 80s slasher movie with adults

Is the bar Julius?

the show within the movie is ubearably bad and unrealstic

I give you hearts not diamonds

That poor guys neck. Another opening. Another show.

The killer should have waited till the guy started to climax. I mean... that's just being polite.

where has Michael Biehn??

Michael Biehn was so hot in Terminator..

Ewwww! Two men kissing! I could just barf!

Dana Delany's first film

"I'm just a spoiled, old bitch."

True words.

What does Lauren bitch about the lighting guy in the rehearsal? Something like "Is he learning on the job?!"

No energy crisis

My professional advice is...

That show would have closed on opening night.

[quote]It's hardly a thriller,

As a young gayling, I was absolutely thrilled by the sight of Michael Beihn.

Thanks, OP...that was horrible.

"When the world takes the last bus home"

Bitch, you know who the hot one was in this flick.

R1 --- please respond! Did any of them ever kill you, and if yes, how do you reply on DL???

In the book, Bacall's character is killed by Biehn's character, laundered ending for the film.

... and she leaves an unfinished note: "I can no longer associate myself

The book was soooooooooooooo much better (heard that before ?) .....really easy read, as it is told through a bunch of notes, telegrams, letters, etc.

And yes, the ending was much better too.

But the film was released around the time of the John Lennon shooting, so it was probably best to have the star live.

Bacall was riding high at that time, with Woman of the Year playing on Broadway, "The Fan" in movie theatres and "By Myself" was still selling well in paperback.

Hot Love Baby Tonight!!!

I saw this right after moving to NYC, and used to walk through that subway corridor where Maureen Stapleton is attacked, or was it Bacall, I forget, but it was a creep passageway that has since been blocked off.

I remember seeing it when it first came on cable, but I haven't seen it since.

It sort of came across as imitation DePalma lite.

Is Maureen Stapleton the actress who played Streisand's mother in Nuts?

I saw Bacall in Woman of the Year which was around the same general time The Fan came out. In WOW I was more taken with her stage presence than her vocal ability. But watching the YouTube clip of the song "Hearts Not Diamonds" from The Fan, I really question what they were thinking having her sing that song. She mostly talks through it, and when she tries to hold a note, she sounds like a fog horn - though she seems to get somewhat better by the end of the song. Instead of a standing ovation, the audience should have demanded their money back. But film parallels life, as often a star's star power carries the show much more than talent. Has anyone covered that song? It's not half bad.

Now let's move on to how hot Michael Biehn is in this movie. Just wish the scene where he hooks up with the guy from the gay bar was longer and more graphic. Biehn was breath-taking beautiful in that film.

What was the title of the fake Broadway musical in "The Fan"?

This is an odd movie. The star should have been 20 years younger.

Did this movie come out before or after Hinckley shot Reagan?

r30 - I think the show was called "Never Say Never."

How did this movie get greenlit by a major studio? Bacall hadn't been a leading lady in decades and Bien was an unknown actor.

I guess I miss the days when movies like this could get made.

The Hollywood Kids review of THE FAN mentions the changed ending. It states that rather than being killed Bacall kills Biehn after "monologing him into submission". Truer words....

[quote]It sort of came across as imitation DePalma lite.

DePalma imitated Hitchcock so shamelessly, it was only a matter of time before someone turned the tables.

I think in the book, Sally's show was 'And Then I Bit Him" or 'And Then She Bites Him"

Someone gets bitten ......I think

Agree that everything about that movie is best forgotten except for Michael Biehn's brief moment of pre-meltdown hotness.

GawdDAMN, what a shame he didn't have a better career! Eye candy to the max; he could have threatened me any time.

Bacall and Garner disavowed the film and claimed the graphic violence wasn't in the original script. Possibly true. While the film was being developed and made, "Friday the 13th" had become a huge hit for Paramount (which also released "The Fan.") Studio execs could easily have ordered more gore to appeal to the younger slasher audience.

Marvin Hamlisch and Tim Rice wrote both "Hearts Not Diamonds" and "A Remarkable Woman." I'm surprised no Broadway chanteuse has ever revived "Hearts Not Diamonds" for a cabaret show.

Bacall later changed her mind about "The Fan". In this UK television interview later in her career she clearly states "I loved "The Fan"" when the interviewer brings it up at 40:50.

There is a chapter on this film in the book "Grande Dame Guignol Cinema".

In spite of the myth that James Garner had a long and happy marriage, he and Miss Bacall were hot and heavy during the making of The Fan.

She was pretty notorious for her affairs with her leading men, including Len Cariou (Applause) and Harry Guardino (Woman of the Year), not to mention Humphrey Bogart.

Bacall's singing is painful to listen to in this movie.

Garner had separated from his wife for a while, and that's when he and Bacall had their fling. I'm surprised his wife took him back; I think they were separated for two years.

I think Griffin Dunne shows up in a bit role in this film, too.

This is how "homosexual" used to be portrayed in the movies, dark, sinister, creepy and usually some sort of death was involved. Now homosexual/gay is portrayed in the movies as a joke, a punchline.

Around this time, Bacall also guested on a two-part edition of "The Rockford Files", plus she and Garner appeared in the Robert Altman film "H*E*A*L*T*H" together.

"It sort of came across as imitation DePalma lite."

The Fan was in direct reaction to Dressed To Kill which was a huge hit the year before this came out. Michael Biehn talks about it in an old interview. How the producers made The Fan more lurid and violent to capitalize on DTK's popularity. They even got that movie's composer - Pino Donnaggio - to do the score.

Last time "The Fan" came up on DL, the comments about the book prompted me to order it. So I gotta give thanks to the DL posters who recommended it!

I read it in one fast sitting. It's a very fun page turner, that book. And in many ways, far darker than what the film ended up being.

I rented the movie right after I finished the book and watched it on Christmas night. (I had the flu so didn't have many better options. And it was a deliciously subversive choice.)

The book is entirely epistolary: letters, notes, police reports, diary entries, newspaper articles. And it works! And when I realized that the stalker's address is blocks away from where I live, that made it even more fun.

The movie isn't great by any measure, but it's fab studio trash, a B-movie in all senses of the word. Given the source material, I don't know how the stars could pretend they were surprised by the violence. Did they not read the book?

I actually thought the film was rather subdued in that regard, especially in comparison to what's come after.

It is noteworthy that the film lets all the stars survive but any and all ethnic and minority help (save the black policewoman) get the ax, as does the cute gay guy in the bar. Maureen Stapleton, the first attacked, just gets her face sliced open. After that, everyone kicks it.

This would cause an uproar today, which makes it all the more comical.

Given that Bacall lived in the Dakota with John Lennon, and that the film was released just a few months after his murder, I can't imagine how uncomfortable that must have been in some regards for everyone in the building.

I did love seeing NYC in that era. It's changed so much. And watching Bacall rehearse and perform this brand new Broadway musical made me howl.

Hearts, Not Diamonds, everyone!

(Oh, and lest this seem not gay enough, Michael Biehn's so beautiful he's reason enough to rent this film. Damn.)

[quote]I saw Bacall in Woman of the Year which was around the same general time The Fan came out. In WOW I was more taken with her stage presence than her vocal ability. But watching the YouTube clip of the song "Hearts Not Diamonds" from The Fan

Bacall was one of those performers who made it, not through talent, but her enormous "IT" factor. She couldn't sing or dance, yet despite talk/croaking songs and having chorus boys drag her all over the stage, they handed her two Tony Awards for musicals. Gotta giver her kudos for that.

Tim Rice-well that explains a lot

[quote]Is Maureen Stapleton the actress who played Streisand's mother in Nuts?

Yes.

As a gay, you should have known that.

Maureen Stapleton was great in "Interiors" as E. G. Marshall's girlfriend. Her red dress was the only color in that movie.

Another in that genre. It's like NYC is all stalkers, moody lighting and straight razers!

The male dancer who escorts Bacall to the party (And gets his stomach sliced open in the pool) also survives, R47.

The film was released 6 months after Lennon was killed but reportedly completed before his murder.

I only wish Biehn had been in a Speedo during the pool scene as well.

R47 --- Glad you enjoyed the book. I am one of the recommenders ..... it is one of my faves from when I was a kid.

R40 makes ANOTHER awesome mention/recommendation. "Grand Dame Guignol Cinema" is a GREAT collecton of detailed reviews of just about every 'old lady/faded actress' movie that ever came up after 'Whatever Happened To Baby Jane'

Pricey, but the Kindle version isn't bad at $ 17 and it is a lot of fun and a keeper.

R40 - you can read some of it for free on Amazon and Google Books.

Oops. Not Amazon, just Google Books.

R53,

Glad you brought that up.

Are you sure?

He never appears again, and I noticed that in one scene there is a reference to him recovering, and in another scene he is referred to as dead.

Can't remember what happens in the book, or if that was even in the book.

But since he was a tall white guy in a Broadway show, he was fated to live to tell the tale if he indeed did live.

I'm huge fan of "The Fan." It captures such a forgotten, nonexistent NYC. At the time, these kind of stalker/killer films had not been done 1,000 times so there was some freshness and thrill to them. Lauren Bacall is doing the whole grande dame of the theater that honestly couldn't have been much of a stretch for her. I agree wit the poster upthread that said someone should really incorporate "Hearts, Not Diamonds" into a cabaret act. I'm actually going to suggest it to a friend of mine who's currently performing on B'way. It's so camp that it reminds me of one of the songs Meryl Streep might've sung in "Songbird!" the musical inside "Death Becomes Her."

R52, I had the utter displeasure of seeing Gordon Willis' Windows based on your link. The movie is kind of the "'Cruising' for Lesbians, a film that was cited by The Celluloid Closet as almost virulently homophobic and protested by several gay rights groups immediately upon its 1980 release. It was only released on VHS in Europe and is hard to track down, although you were able to find it, in its entirety, on YouTube. The movie follows Emily Hollander who, in the opening scene, is overtaken by a home intruder upon entering her home, teased and taunted with a knife down her throat and then finally raped. The cop investigating her attack (played by Joe Cortese) helps her find the attacker and her neighbor and friend, Andrea, (Elizabeth Ashley) provides comfort and support in the days/weeks that follow.

...except, in a later scene, Andrea is seen sipping a glass of wine and listening to an audio recording of Emily's attack which she has clearly orchestrated. And so sets off a Sapphic "Fatal Attraction" scenario with the creepy Andrea renting an apartment across the city from Emily's new place and watching her through a telescope, clearly getting off on every delicious moment.

Besides featuring one of the most ridiculous sequences I think I've ever witnessed on film (Emily gets into a cab to discover it's being driven by her rapist (!), asks to stop to use a payphone to presumably call the police and then GETS BACK IN THE CAB so that her attacker can then be apprehended by cops up ahead), the movie fails to offer a reason why anyone, let alone someone as well-off and seemingly intelligent as Andrea is, would be obsessed with the meek, stuttering, utterly unremarkable Emily. Talia Shire apparently thought she was still playing shy Adrian Balboa. And Elizabeth Ashley goes into some type of hyperventilating attack at the climax of the film that is completely laughable. It's almost hard to call something like this "homophobic." The script is too bumblingly stupid to be in service of those kind of intentions. Misogynistic? Absolutely. No better displayed than when Emily is made to give oral sex to a knife in a scene that goes on so long, it becomes uncomfortable.

What is truly worthy about this film and why I'd go so far as to suggest it to such an erudite crowd as yourselves, is the picture postcard lusciousness of its photography, especially when framed by the titular windows. In a kind of Who's Who of 1970's cinema, Gordon Willis, famed cinematographer of The Godfather, All the President's Men, etc., directed and photographed it (and needless to say, this was the first and last film he directed), Mel Bourne provided art direction and Ennio Morricone created the laconic score. The stunning shots of the Twin Towers, the Brooklyn Bridge and the rowdy new NYC streets are a send-back to a New York long gone.

Shire, Ashley, the picture itself, its screenplay and Willis all received Razzie nominations in the first year those were handed out. Also, watch for a quick Kay Medford scene as Emily's creepy new neighbor who lets her use her phone halfway through the picture. Medford passed away four months after the film was released.

The film can also boast being the "first film of the 1980's" as, I believe, it was the first official release of 1980.

If it's 2 o'clock in the morning and you're slightly buzzed, I can think of a lot worse things you could watch. So bad, it's almost fun.

That scene in the gay bar is interesting in that this was the year that AIDS first appeared. Does anyone know where the scene was filmed? Was it an actual gay bar? J's Hangout?

I tried to get Lauren to do a spread-eagle move across the stage, but she refused to show her panties.

bump

R60, what say you on The Eyes of Laura Mars?

Embarrassing to admit, R64, but I haven't seen "The Eyes of Laura Mars."

Well r60, fear not...it's AWFUL!

Another of those "People used to find crap like this cutting edge entertainment, but now camp" entries. I somehow always enjoy "The Fan", but never cotton to "Laura Mars".

[quote] What was the title of the fake Broadway musical in "The Fan"?

The name of the show she's just closing at the beginning of the film is much better. "It's Called Tomorrow."

R66 --- they're ALL awful movies ....that is what makes them fun now. NOW is when there is so much crap around .... ever since 'direct to video' dreck has been dreck ....and now with streaming it is more of the same.

I'd kill for a great cheesefest like 'Laura Mars' or 'The Fan'.

I just got done watching a couple of the behind-the-scenes interviews from Scream Factory's recent Blu-ray—unsurprisingly, it seems no one has a good thing to say about Lauren Bacall. Michael Biehn said he brought her a flowers as a gesture when first meeting her, and she apparently passed them off to her assistant, did not acknowledge him, and continued to chain-smoke with James Garner. According to Biehn, she came to loathe him more after they began shooting the finale, during which the two get into a physical fight. Apparently Betty tripped at fell at one point during the filming of this sequence, and afterward made a point of referring to her co-star as "Mr. Biehn, the actor with no control." Biehn was fairly candid about his dislike for her (and hers for him), and got in one jab where he referred to her singing as "that low howl that she expressed as music." He also said that the vast majority of people who bring up the film to him and are admirers are gay men (shocking).

The film's editor also had nothing nice to say about Bacall, and stated that he "avoided her as much as possible." He did comment that he remembered her assistant on the film had to spend each morning zig-zagging around the Manhattan to pick up juice, coffee, and croissants from various shops. I had no idea how much of a troubled production the film had, cunt Betty aside—apparently the original director left after the studio decided they wanted to rebrand the feature as a slasher film (inspired by the box-office success of "Dressed to Kill"), and Betty was apparently very unhappy about this (though I'm sure she'd have been as big a cunt either way).

How did this go 69 posts without someone asking R9 WTF he's saying?

The Scream Factory Blu-ray is great. I loved watching the Biehn interview that r69 mentions. He is an interesting actor. And he seems to be okay (now) with the fact that gay men love the movie (and mostly for him). You can tell he was very disappointed that this was supposed to be his big break and, while it was a plum role in a big Hollywood film, it didn't really make him a star (although he went on to star is three big James Cameron films later in the decade). I love how he describes Bacall without actually calling her a bitch but we all know better.

Biehn is the only person I ever heard say he doesn't know why anyone doesn't get along with James Cameron.

he was so hot in the Lords of Discipline

[quote]How did this go 69 posts without someone asking [R9] WTF he's saying?

It's a play on how the name sounds. Where has Michael been (Biehn)?

Oh, ok. I guess because I just instinctively pronounce it "BYNE," I missed that. Thanks for explaining, R73

No problem. I'm not r9, BTW. And I think it's pronounced closer to 'bean' than 'been' but I assume that's what r9 was going for.

Anyone ever found out why the line "How would you liked to be fucked with a meat cleaver?" was cut from the DVD releases of the film? Was there a spate of meat cleaver fuckings around that time that I'm unaware of?

It's a very weird censor, r76, since nothing else in the film was changed or removed for that edition. The more recent Bluray release from Scream Factory is unedited.

Apparently, the gay bar used in fiming the movie was the Haymarket.

This movie came out weeks after John Hinckley shot Ronald Reagan to impress Jodie Foster.

Did that hurt its box office appeal?

I think coming out hot on the heels of John Lennon getting killed hurt it more.

I am not one of your FANSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!

What about the DeNiro film from 1996? Is that a remake?

no r82. Just a similar theme of an obsessed fan.

[quote]R36 I think in the book, Sally's show was 'And Then I Bit Him" or 'And Then She Bites Him". Someone gets bitten ......I think.

It is titled [italic]So I Bit Him.[/italic]

Why I know this, I do not know.

[quote]I tried to get Lauren to do a spread-eagle move across the stage, but she refused to show her panties.

We told you to hire Helen Lawson. She would have given you your money shot and then some!

I love Michael Biehn.

I've never seen him quite like this before!

Dear bitch...

I've always assumed Biehn was pronounced as Bein' (Being without the g).

I wonder who they wanted for Bacall's part (and how far Bacall was down the list). I'm sure Dunaway was high on their list. Streisand was probably number one.

Always loved the fake deLempicka portrair of Bacall that gets slashed.

"Well, hallelujah. Take note, everybody, Betty's got work."