Body of Evidence * (1992, Madonna, Willem Dafoe, Joe Mantegna, Anne Archer, Julianne Moore) – Classic Movie Review 9411

The body in question is Madonna’s and we get to see an awful lot of it in director Uli Edel’s disastrous 1992 erotic courtroom thriller Body of Evidence. Madonna won the 1994 Razzie Award for Worst Actress.

Unfortunately the film is a right old trashy farrago, with a tiny wedge of plot spun out by, er, lashings of S&M sex between the Material Girl and her passive defence lawyer, Frank Dulaney (Willem Dafoe).

Madonna plays a dominatrix art gallery owner, Rebecca Carlson, who has (as they say) ‘dated’ a Portland millionaire, Andrew Marsh (Michael Forest), an old man with a dickey heart, and got him so excited with her kinky sex games that he has shuffled off this mortal coil. Or at least that is what the district attorney, Robert Garrett (Joe Mantegna), thinks. Dafoe, under the spell of Mad’s hot candle wax and cold steel handcuffs, soon thinks otherwise. And that’s it.

A certain professionalism keeps the film going, and director Edel does what he can to make it and the lady look moody and alluring. Madonna shows a modicum of acting talent, at least keeping up with her talented and experienced co-stars, who look embarrassed a lot of the time. Maybe she should not really be making anything quite as tacky as this though.

It runs 101 minutes (unrated) or 99 minutes but the TV version runs 90 minutes and edits it for violence and swearing.

It also stars Anne Archer, Julianne Moore, Jürgen Prochnow, Frank Langella and Stan Shaw, with John Davis Chandler, Jeff Perry, Lillian Lehman, Peter Paul Eastman and Aaron Corcoran.

Body of Evidence is directed by Uli Edel, runs 101 minutes (unrated) or 99 minutes, is made by Neue Constantin Film, Dino De Laurentiis Company  is released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) (1993) (US), Constantin Film (1993) (Germany) and Guild Film Distribution (1993) (UK), is written by Brad Mirman, is shot by Douglas Milsome [Doug Milsome], is produced by Melinda Jason (executive producer), Stephen Deutsch (executive producer), Dino De Laurentiis, Martin Moszkowicz, Bernd Eichinger (co-producer) and Herman Weigel (co-producer), is scored by Graeme Revell and is designed by Victoria Paul.

The UK video, ‘the full uncut version’, shows slightly more graphic footage of the sex scenes than the UK region 2 DVD version, American R-rated DVD version and unrated DVD version.

Erotic thrillers were in vogue at the time, but the controversy did not pay off at the box office. It cost $30,000,000 and grossed $13,273,595 in the US.

Uli Edel previously made Christiane F [Christiane F – Wir Kinder vom Bahnhof Zoo] (1981) and Last Exit to Brooklyn, and went on to The Little Vampire.

© Derek Winnert 2020 Classic Movie Review 9411

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