Was Glenn meant to look rough as hell throughout all of Fatal Attraction

[quote] Was Glenn meant to look rough as hell throughout all of Fatal Attraction

Yes, but the makeup department lucked out because they didn't have to do anything to her.

Glenn's face did all the "heavy lifting."

Sadly, they were actually trying to make her look good : (

An interesting thing is the production designer thought it would be interesting if, because Alex is an off kilter character, that the audience rarely got a clean, full on straight look at her face. He tried to mostly have some hair tumbling into it, or seen in a 3/4 profile... or some other approach that kept her a little mysterious and unknowable.

Of course it doesn’t happen in every single shot, but that’s what they were going for.

That makes sense. Unfortunately she can’t do ‘sultry’ just manic crossed with homely

Why is DL so obsessed with Glenn?

Because she’s kind of a freak.

I thought she was quite sexy in Fatal Attraction.

She doesn't look rough. She's an antithesis to the calm, stable, safe sort of woman.

She played a role that is a legit draw for men, both gay and straight. If you don't think men aren't attracted to people who run the spectrum of straight-up rough trade to those who are acceptable in most circumstances, but have some edgy issues, you've got another thing coming. Women also find these types attractive, but safety, social pressure keep them from acting on it more often than they'd like in real life. See Belle de Jour. It's a move. A fantasy.

This is actually a really solid movie. Very tense. Even if it’s a straight up ripoff of “Play Misty for Me”.

She looked exactly like the type of woman who would be great in bed for some sleazy businessman to have a one-off lay with -- only to have her become increasingly unhinged and obsessed. She looked perfect for the role.

The fact that Close wasn’t beautiful made the grasping character more plausible. If Kim Basinger or someone else pretty played it, we’d think, “No biggie - she’ll just get someone else.”

She may have looked like a junkie scarecrow but she was still more appealing than the bloated arrogant man she was trying to kill.

I also thought she looked good in Fatal Attraction. It's that initial confidence and flirtatiousness that makes her alluring. She dressed stylishly, too.

It's the way that Close inhabits the character and how she draws Dan/Douglas in that works so well, in addition to their chemistry. Plus, Douglas and Archer don't generate sexual heat like Douglas and Close did.

Anne Archer. What a pillowcase. Just so stupid and weak and milquetoast in this movie. Alex Forest should have killed her and Douglas, running off with the baby dyke daughter.

whether some people want to believe it or not, she is and was an attractive woman. The vast majority of straight men would absolutely be interested, particularly in this given character. There is no fiction to that part at all, that's just the way it is.

Glenn's hair is the 80's version of the Barbara Stanwyck wig from "Double Indemnity". Those styles indicated great for a lay, but get away....

I enjoy ribbing G as much as the next Datalounger, but I have to give her her due—she’s the one who made the 1987 and 1988 Best Actress races so exciting, with her fantastic performances in two wildly different films. Without her the races would have been much more run of the mill.

She has great boobs in "Dangerous Liasons".

OP here again. Good point, if she was a knockout then she’d probably find it easy to move on and not become so desperate. Still, her looks throughout gave me a total fright.

Yes, I truly thought the daughter was played by a young boy?

That scene where she is sitting on the bed TOPLESS after her and Michael Douglas had sex- She looked like a MAN with TITS.

Lol R19.

You forgot to sign your post "-M"

She’s a difficult woman. Couldn’t give a damn if you like her on not and doesn’t need to be liked either. Much prefer Sigourney Weaver

[quote]R13 Anne Archer. What a pillowcase. Just so stupid and weak and milquetoast in this movie.

Men are fine with that, as long as the lady’s pretty.

She’s a stay-at-home wife and mother. And when we see her at her parents’ house it looks like she comes from money.

Fug bitch

Her face is very squarkish?

I did NOT find Michael Douglas appealing in that movie.

I agree she looked hard and a bit rough, but it was also something of a Power Bitch look that you saw at the time. The frizzled-fried hair, the horny seductress on the prowl to devour a victim or maybe get a nice trip or some good conference cock or a leg up on an important new client or a job offer.

It BUGGED me that Anne Archer's character dressed her girl ( clothes and haircut) like a BOY.

Well, FUCK YOU!!!!!!!!

Kellyanne Conway could probably pull off this role today with very little effort involved on her part.

[quote]R26 the horny seductress on the prowl to devour a victim or maybe get a nice trip, or some good conference cock or a leg up on an important new client, or a job offer.

Hauling me over to Mayer’s table like a picked up floozie...or one of those starlets, out to give the big shots a nice night on the town? [italic]Is that what you think of me ? ?

I rarely like to get into deeper discussions in film, or even literature, but I think this one does have a case for interesting interpretation.

There has been a recent trend in literature and film to detract from a person's appearance, for reasons I get, but don't agree with. It's to make them so bland, "anyone" can identify with. I don't I hate this trend. It's boring.

This movie is an example of when physical appearance plays its own role. It's more interesting, and creates a greater intrigue in the viewers mind. You get it, but don't completely agree with it. That is an aspect of the drama without saying a word. Show, don't tell. It's excellent story telling.

Olivia Colman is ten times uglier than Glenn is/was in any era. Plus, Colman looks like she has bad breath or a bad case of gingivitis.

Glenn was sexy and overall attractive in the film.

Ugh, stop. Glenn looked great in the movie. That frizzy overpermed hair was very 80s. In the beginning of the film she's very stylish and put together, and then visibly over the course of the film she deteriorates. But when she first comes on screen, she absolutely pulled off the sexy femme fatale.

I thought she was better looking in Dangerous Liaisons.

Glenn isn't a beauty. Lets just get that out of the way.

However, she does have an "aristocratic" type of beauty. An almost regal look, more suited to the heavy make up and big hair of Dangerous Liaisons.

In Fatal Attraction, she was just a mess.

LOL @ "junkie scarecrow". Great description.

Glenn definitely has a classical European look, suited to ... hmm. Older times.

In 1987, Madonna was the look that guys were attracted to.

No, Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction was perfectly cast. She isn't the type of woman someone would expect to be attracted to, but the reality is few straight men would turn that down. That's part of the point. Why would you turn away from all this seemingly perfect life/perfect wife for this woman? That's what makes the story compelling. She's very attractive, but her type and the way it's played is contrasted with the seeming perfect spouse. That's the drama.

Ebert on "Fatal Attraction":

"I wanted, for example, to hear a good talk between Douglas and Archer, in which truth was told and the strength of the marriage was tested. I wanted to see more of the inner workings of Close's mind. I wanted to know more about how Douglas really felt about the situation. Although he grows to hate Close, is he really completely indifferent to the knowledge that she carries his child?

The movie does not explore any of those avenues, although the filmmakers clearly have the intelligence to do so. Instead, the last third of the movie collapses into pathetic melodrama. The big scene of truth between Douglas and Archer is shortchanged and feels unfinished. There is a pathetic sequence in which Close captures their daughter and scares her with a roller-coaster ride, while a frantic Archer gets in a car crash and breaks her arm. Give me a break."

Ebert is right, though.

I miss that sort of thoughtful movie review.

She was thin and stylish and blonde. Plus confident and brash and adventurous. It was a thrill to the man with the lovely and decorous and sane wife.

I afree, R39, it suffered in its last act. If things wee then as they are now, this probably should have been an limited series, and would have been lit.

Michael Douglas is like 5' 5"- so that had to be considered.

I thought she nailed the role. Can't imagine anyone else as Alex.

My gawd, r42. I am R42. I'm not even going to attempt to correct. I know what I did wrong, and if you're smart, so do you.

and I'm not suggesting a reboot. That would not be good.

The 80s were tacky. What with the aids, cocaine, and big hair. Yes, she was hot for the 80s.

[quote] I'm not even going to attempt to correct.

You can just wee, wee, wee all the way home.

She looked like a tramp and played the tramp role well

Every time I see that commercial about the woman who almost lost her hair when she was in medical school, I think of Glen in Fatal Attraction.

She is supposed to look good in the first few scenes before they go to bed. (and she does that was the style, big hair etc.) She's very chic and flashy at the book signing party when you first see her. She really pops out in the crowd. Her jewelry and clothes are excellent.

Then her looks are supposed to deteriorate as her mind does. On the DVD extras the art director or costumer talks about how she let them flatten her hair, dress her in black, put dark eye makeup on light her poorly.... He says they knew she wouldn't look good but she was committed enough to the character to let them make her appear looking so bad. The guy praised her lack of vanity since he said most actresses wouldn't have let them make her look that awful.

Ebert is wrong r39 about the roller coaster. The kid loves it and gives Glenn a kiss when she drops her off at home.

Her hair in this role triggered a massive trend of spiral perms --nobody at that time really had the sort of wild corkscrew curls that she sported, but instead, the ghastly 80s poodle perms that we all know. With bangs. If I recall, she chopped her hair off after the film to distance herself from the character, who became completely infamous.

I actually love spiral curls on anyone, but Glenn's features make more sense with short hair, or an updo.

[quote] nobody at that time really had the sort of wild corkscrew curls that she sported

Excuse me?

R53, that was about two years after Glenn. But that ass-lapping leather bodysuit was once and forever.

The role should’ve gone to Michelle Pfeiffer

If I Could Turn Back Time was made in 1987, R54.

Same year as Fatal Attraction.

She is hideous looking in this movie. And she looks like she smels like an ashtray and too much perfume.

Michelle Pfeiffer wasn't a star yet when Fatal Attraction was made.

Michelle Pfeiffer did Tequila Sunrise with Mel Gibson in 1987.

I liked that movie.

OP - She is meant to look like she knows how to fuck long, hard and dirty. To say she achieved "the look" would be a massive understatement.

Glenn is too hoity toity to play a convincing ho

Hard to believe now, but those corkscrew perms were fashionable in the late 80s. That hairstyle was ubiquitous, and it lasted way past its sell-by date. There were women who wore that hairstyle well into the 1990s. Marcia Clark got a lot of shit for her permed hair during the OJ trial, and that finally killed the hairstyle, at least among professional women.

I'd be surprised if Michelle Pfeiffer wasn't considered for the part of Alex. After Scarface, Dominick Dunne wrote a profile about her where he basically said she's the next great movie star.

I have no idea how reliable this site is, but some of these names are insane casting. Gilda Radner or Tracey Ullman as Alex???

that site at r63 is so odd. Mary Gross (the obscure SNL player was cast in both Fatal Attraction and Bull Durham but then let go for bigger stars? Unlikely!)

I've read Debra Winger was offered Fatal Attraction but turned it down to do Betrayed.

At the time it was kind of a thing for actresses to brag about how they were offered the role but turned it down to feminist concerns. Christine Lahti said that in a magazine and was called out as lying about it.

Lots of women probably got offers for auditions and meetings since there were two big roles for women.

Adrian Lyne says once he saw Close's screentest he was sold on her. The producers didn't want to bring her in since they thought she was all wrong for the role. They told her the respected her too much to make her fly across country to do a screentest just to be turned down. Her agent was zealous and she wanted to do the test. She flew in. When Lyne saw her audition he has said he ran down the hall to the executives saying 'We found her!!!" (he'd had a hard time finding someone he wanted.)

Close's screentest is pretty amazing. It is almost what she did in the film. Fascinating that she came up with the character on her own with no direction.

I'm always in the minority when this subject comes up, but I've said it before and I'll say it again. GLENN CLOSE WAS HOT AS FUCK in this movie. No, she isn't a conventional beauty as mentioned earlier, but she oozes sex appeal, danger, electricity and mystery which is why Dan Gallagher goes there even though he has a gorgeous, devoted wife at home. Alex is alluring and intriguing and Glenn has never looked better than she does in this film. In general, I find Glenn to be a rather handsome woman unlike some of the folks here who think she's a troll or something.

I agree r66. Glenn was hot and had sex appeal in this movie.

Alex in therapy.

[quote] The role should’ve gone to Michelle Pfeiffer

Pfeiffer was too pretty and delicate to capture the desperate and enraged allness of this role. Some pretty young babe like her would have cut her losses and moved onto the next horny sugar daddy. [italic]Maybe[/italic] a fiery Jessica Lange could have been a close replacement, but this role belonged to Glenn.

Pfeiffer was also too young. The character says this may be her last chance to have a baby and that is why she wants to keep it.

I forget, does Douglas ever find out for sure if she was pregnant? He breaks into her apartment and looks for stuff but I forget what he finds.

Glenn Close was a fucking sexual animal in this, she was perfect.

R69 Puh-feiffer is over rated and a bad actress. She doesn't even add up to one pube of Glenn's.

Pfeiffer wasn't a big enough star yet. The Witches of Eastwick was her only big film and she was the least noticed in that one.

The next year 1988 was when she hit it big with Married to the Mob, Dangerous Liaisons and Tequila Sunrise (which she hated making because of Gibson and the director.)

R70, There's a scene in which Dan tells his friend/colleague that he found the number to Alex's OBGYN when he broke into her apartment. He called the doctor and the doctor congratulated him so the audience is to believe that the pregnancy is real.

thanks r74

Nowadays privacy laws would prevent that!

[quote]Puh-feiffer is over rated and a bad actress. She doesn't even add up to one pube of Glenn's.

Absolutely not. While I wouldn't say she was fantastic all of the time she did have moments of brilliance with The Fabulous Baker Boys and Age of Innocence. However her "Selina Kyle/Catwoman" was iconic and she somehow managed to elevate the role far above what most actresses would have accomplished. That is what she'll always be remembered for. It's also the only role most younger people can name that she did outside of her brief Marvel stints.

" but this role belonged to Glenn."

Actually, it didn't. Everyone thought she was completely miscast, until the film opened. Then everyone agreed she was as miscast as Elizabeth Taylor in Who's Afraid...and Mary Tyler Moore in Ordinary People.

Glenn completely changed the trajectory of her career with this movie. I doubt she would have gotten Dangerous Liasons had it not been for this.

She was considered and Oscar also-ran both times; first time losing to Cher in Moonstruck, then Jodie in The Accused. I wonder where she'd stand if those awards were voted on today.

R76 Batman Returns was a horrible movie. Tim Burton's worst film and one of the worst Batman movies. Saying she was good in one of the worst movies ever, is not saying anything.

R78 who made you the arbiter of cinema? That's just your personal opinion. Nothing more.

For what it's worth, BATMAN RETURNS received favorable reviews from critics, was a box office hit (#6 of the year), and Pfeiffer got great notices for her performance, even Oscar buzz. In the end, the Academy nominated her that year instead for an Oscar-bait film -- the Civil Rights movie LOVE FIELD -- even though it bombed in theaters and was panned by critics. Today, she would easily get an Oscar nod for BR.

R27 Yeah, it seemed out of character for an upper class woman of her time to dress her daughter like a little boy, which is what I and my friends thought she was throughout most of the movie. We thought her name was 'Alan.'

R79 What a genius, you are. Batman Returns was absolute shit, worthless garbage, like you.

I'd like to see a 2021 reboot with Jennifer Aniston cast as Alex.....the raw emotional depth of the Rachel haircut would provide stunning artistic nuances to the Alex character and the psychological interplay between the characters. Jennifer with her arms crossed and biting her lower lip as Jason Bateman in the Michael Douglas role explains he thinks they are "on a break".....Jennifer looks up quickly/comically from the wildly boiling stockpot with the two oversized bunny ears sticking out and says, feigning ignorance and stalling for time, "What, what am I doing, you ask?" Good stuff.

[quote] Plus, Douglas and Archer don't generate sexual heat like Douglas and Close did.

I love Close in this but this comment made me laugh. Maybe you don’t think they “generate sexual heat” because their characters don’t fuck and Douglas doesn’t get to suck on her nipple. I thought they had amazing chemistry together, which is another reason the film works. The scene of Archer getting ready, i.e., putting on makeup and perfume, as Douglas watches is a perfect example of the chemistry they had.

In 1987 I had short hair and wore clothes like the little girl in this movie. Not everything was as extremely gendered for kids as it is today.

I did NOT like Anne Archer's character in Fatal Attraction.

I'm GLAD Michael Douglas had an affair with the MAN WITH TITS.

R82, I know you're joking, but I sincerely hope there aren't plans for a "remake" of FA. That would be a new pathetic low from an already pathetic industry. I guess they could improve upon the controversial ending, but this film, particularly Glenn's performance, is so highly regarded that any remake would likely pale in comparison. The really bad ripoffs that come out every year are enough. Of course FA itself was a well-done ripoff of Play Misty For Me.

I thought Alex passed as an 80's "up for anything" chick with butterface and good hair. The weirdly non gender specific (at the time) dughter was more questionable casting-wise to me.

No the child was perfect, an adorable pixie. So much more memorable than pigtails. When I was a kid, a number of the girls in my elementary school class had the pixie cut. Granted this was in the late 60s-early 70s so I dare say Mia Farrow deserves some credit for that.

Michael Douglas cheated from the stress of not knowing what gender his child was.

Speaking of LOVE FIELD, did anyone else think it weird that Pfeiffer's character was a huge Jackie Kennedy fan but she looked more like Marilyn Monroe? In the beginning when she is among the crowd greeting Jack & Jackie as they arrive in Dallas, I thought, "Jackie will probably think Marilyn is stalking them." haha

Michelle Pfeiffer eventually played an obsessive murdering lover in “white oleander.” That film didn’t explain the obsession well enough though.

Glenn had her eye on Dangerous Liasions for a while. She had signed to take over on Broadway when the Lindsay Duncan and the rest of the British casts visas were up. The show did poorly over the summer so they closed it before putting in the Americans in the fall. (Kevin Spacey and Kelly McGillis were to play the Malkovitch and Pfeiffer parts.)

That was such a mistake. Had they kept it running Close would have been in it when Fatal Attraction was released and she propbably would have been a draw.

She then had a baby and then got the film which as said she probably wouldn't have without the success and change of image Fatal brought.

It was odd that the kid sometimes looked like a boy. Even in the scene where she is rehearsing her Thanksgiving Day play she's cast as a male, Miles Standish talking to her love Priscilla.

Odd. Early trans activism I guess.

The lamp scene was pretty chilling. Pretty much every DLer at one point. lol

R94 The power of Glenn's acting.

Darlin’,that’s me every night

the lamp scene is really cool. Lyne talks about that on the commentary track. I forget what he said. It might have been that she was just sitting there and she randomly started switching the lamp and they then decided they really liked it.

Light and dark, light and dark.....like her clothing and her psyche. I get it!

She was brilliant and perfect in that part. And yes, we were slim in the 80s, which looks scary to today's pillsbury doughboys.

R99 Must have been all that cocaine.

Cocaine and the aids kept people thin in the 80s. LOL.

Her character epitomized the entire stereotype that unstable, borderline women are good fucks. And her look was supposed to play into all of that, 80s style.

I hated how they put the blue liner around her entire eye, though. They made her already close set eyes (probably her worst feature) look even worse.

She's always been a dog.. Apparently someone thought they could disguise it with the hair. Her face remained uglee!

I don't think she was unattractive at all. Not conventionally attractive like the actress who played the wife (weirdo clam btw) but she had a very wild, sexy look. In the scene where they are at the book launch, Dan's friend says something to that effect.

I thought the kid was a boy throughout most of the movie.

Kind of ironic that the kid was named Ellen.

She’s not unattractive as such, just big time looks like a man

He looked like shit in this movie.

Glenn was fabulous in this film. Perfect!

She was supposed to be visually the opposite of Anne Archer. Where Anne was a dark-haired controlled beauty, Glenn was a wild blonde woman.

She was a scamp, a camp and a bit of tramp.

She was a V-A-M-P,

Vamp.

I think her looks are also meant to symbolize how Michael Douglas thinks about her. She's this bright shiny object that catches his attention for a minute and then he realizes what a mess she really is and how destructive to his life she will become.

The happy ending of the couple got a lot of criticism. I remember Anne Archer started saying in interviews that she's not sure if the couple lives happily ever after and that they will have rough times ahead.

(If you think about it, it would be a major news story: wife shoots husband's pregnant mistress in bathtub after she breaks in.)

A big part of the attraction was that she was very obvious about her interest in HIM and actively pursued him. He was probably used to having to do all the chasing and found that exciting.