Windows

I found this film the other day at a market stall; quite an obscure film. The film appears to be quite good when you read the back of the box, but when you watch it...really awful. The only thing Gordon Willis seemed to care about was the photography. In a film like this you need great acting. We don't get great acting however and you cannot take the film seriously. It just gets ludicrous at times, especially the psycho-lesbian lover storyline. It is disgracefully misogynistic, which is another reason not to watch the film.

I will say that the film's photography is stunning though (similar to woody allen's 'interiors') but that is the only reason to watch this garbage.

"Windows" was directed by noted cinematographer (and frequent Woody Allen collaborator) Gordon Willis, and as one would expect, he has a great eye for artful compositions, creative use of light / shadow, and New York. The film is (nearly) always visually interesting, which helps sustain it through a rather thin story. Elizabeth Ashley is both touching and unsettling, but Talia Shire seemed to have already been typecast into the mousy, "Rocky's wife" type of roles. Trivia: apparently in 1979 you could rent an apartment in Brooklyn Heights for $300 a month!! **1/2 out of 4.

WINDOWS (1980) */****

One of the all-time worst films I've ever seen. It's been 25 years since I saw this in a tiny theatre and simultaneously watched it vanish from history without a trace. This recent second viewing via a VHS dupe from some unknown source did not improve things much, but I've got a story to tell about this movie and how it's eluded me for such a very long time. This has become almost a "lost" film, and I'll have a theory later as to why nobody's seeing it anymore, aside from the basic fact that it simply stinks.

In 1980 I was 17 and went to see WINDOWS at the movies with my kid sister. It was only one of the two times in my life I ever recall going to a theatre with her, and we were both in shock at just how abysmal the feature before our eyes was. It was boring, badly acted, and by the final act, completely laughable. The whole theatre was in hysterics. It's not the kind of experience you forget when you're a movie fan, even 25 years after the fact.

The movie starts in its New York City setting with lousy actress Talia Shire (who apparently thinks she's still playing the timid Adrian from the first ROCKY film) being assaulted and raped in her own apartment, getting forced at knifepoint to moan and groan into the attacker's tape recorder. We later discover (and since it's not presented as any kind of mystery I'm not ruining anything that hasn't already been ruined) that Shire's got a psychotic and horny lesbian neighbor (Elizabeth Ashley) across the hall who's so in love with her that Ashley actually hired this rapist/goon to pull off the crime - so she can play the tape over and over and get off on it to her heart's content.

When Talia decides to move to a nicer apartment to start anew, Elizabeth and her loose screws aren't very far behind. She'll do anything to make Talia love her, as her ineffective psychiatrist seems to be aware. Enter vapid policeman Joseph Cortese (who's about as interesting as a door stop) to romance Shire (what the hell do Ashley and Cortese see in her insipid character anyway?) and "help" her ... in an unbelievable sequence, Shire is in a cab with a driver whom she recognizes as the rapist; she asks to be let off at a phone booth, calls the police, but is instructed to get back in the car with her attacker till the cops can get to them!

Besides being ineptly acted, WINDOWS is also dull and boring, but there's something curiously watchable about it for fans of bad movies only, for all its incompetence. It was the first and only film (no wonder) to be directed by cinematographer Gordon Willis; it was his photography that graced THE GODFATHER and some of Woody Allen's picturesque movies, so his shots of New York may be the one thing to watch for here, aside from getting a load of Elizabeth Ashley's embarrassing climax with Talia Shire. This film is also notorious as being the very FIRST film to be released in the entire decade of the 1980's, and of course as of this writing it's a movie that is virtually impossible to locate, as it was never released on home video except in France (I believe). It was through the wonders of the Internet that I was able to hunt this thing down and see how bad it still is.

So why has this film been so hard to track down? Well, for starters, it's got to be a humiliation to everyone involved. I'm fairly positive it's owned by Warner Brothers, and my personal opinion is that, in this Politically Correct world of today, we just cannot have a film available that depicts a homicidal maniac when she also happens to be a lesbian. But that in itself has made the movie all the more desirable for a viewing, and it's at the very least a reminder of the type of movies filmmakers used to be allowed to make. Proceed at your own risk -- if you can ever find a copy, that is.

The general opinion of this movie is either that it is terrible, or that it is SO bad, it's actually good. Well, I don't think this movie is really "good" in any sense of the word, but it's not that bad either. It definitely has some good aspects. The cinematography is outstanding, not surprisingly perhaps since it was directed by famed cinematographer Gordon Willis. Visually it was kind of and attempt to update the moody film-noir style of the 40's and 50's to the present day (as of 1980 anyway). It was also filmed in NYC and it captures a lot of the palpably sleazy ambiance of the city in that era that can also be seen in films like "Taxi Driver" or "Dog Day Afternoon".

The plot is ridiculous, of course, but that's not necessarily a bad thing either. In fact, the people who were so offended by the movie originally should have taken into account that this movie defames real-life lesbians about as much as "Roadrunner" cartoons defame real-life coyotes. (And Wile E.Coyote gives a much more subdued performance and usually shreds less scenery than Elizabeth Ashley does in this movie). Besides the problem is not that lesbians are frequently portrayed as villains in movies. Even taking their relative numbers into account, there are still far less lesbian villains in movies (not including sexy bisexual women, which is a whole different thing) than there are white male villains. There is certainly a lack of POSITIVE portrayals of lesbians in movies perhaps even today, but that's a different issue. And, ironically, the typical negative portrayal of lesbians in the media does not generally involve them being murderous stalkers, but rather being shrill, self-righteous, humorless, man-hating busy-bodies who want to censor everything under the sun that offends their perpetually outraged sensibilities. Hmmm, I wonder where that stereotype comes from?

But back to the movie, this is one of 70's/80's movies that would actually be PERFECT for a re-make. They could put a really sexy actress in the lead who doesn't play the whole thing as deadly earnestly as ole "Yo! Adrienne!" does here. It would actually be pretty hard to best Elizabeth Ashley's campy, OTT performance, but I think modern audiences would certainly appreciate a performance like this a lot more than they did back in 1980. This isn't a good movie, of course,but why re-make a GOOD movie? Re-make, DVD release, or both--this is definitely long-due for some kind of revival.

I've read the user reviews for this film, and some of them seem way too harsh. I understand Windows was critically bashed during its theatrical release and considered offensive to many viewers, but watching it today, it's not that bad. In fact, keeping an open mind as to how the characters interact with one another, it's at the very least interesting. Sure, there are plot holes the size of Manhattan, but this is a stylized thriller with beautiful photography at its core.

The story centers on a psycho named Andrea (Elizabeth Ashley) – who just happens to be a lesbian – infatuated with her timid neighbor Emily (Talia Shire). Andrea goes so far as to hire a creep named Obecny (Rick Petrucelli) to attack Emily and have the ordeal recorded. Andrea gets her kicks listening to the audio despite seeing a therapist. We soon learn that curing Andrea of her obsession may not be in the cards. What follows is Emily trying to cope and get on with her life while Andrea basically stalks and watches her through a telescope.

The film does drag a bit at times, but the climax certainly holds its own until the very end, where it just fizzles. However, I did scratch my head a couple of times in a good way by being perplexed as to what the intentions of the characters were. I also thought Ashley gave an unusual performance. Andrea was played as confused and sometimes volcanic, but with more subtlety, unlike an Alex Forrest (Fatal Attraction), for example. I think she should have been the focus of the film, giving Ashley more to work with and to create a deeper connection to the material. The acting was credible by the rest of the cast, especially Shire, who warms up to the role as the film progresses. Finally, the whole controversy over Andrea being a lesbian seems silly now. I mean, it's a character. We have all kinds of movies featuring different types of psychopaths relishing in various fetishes. Andrea just happened to be a lesbian whose obvious crush was going to be on another woman. Let's get over it already.

I wanted to see this film for over 30 years because of the controversy it spawned. Was it worth it? Yes and no. I didn't see it as controversial, but it did keep me watching until the end. Just watch the Syfy channel, and you'll see WAY more movies worse than this one in every respect, literally. If you do decide to see Windows, don't overanalyze it and remember this was the first and only directorial effort from the renowned cinematographer Gordon Willis.