The Fan *** (1981, Lauren Bacall, James Garner, Maureen Stapleton, Michael Biehn, Hector Elizondo) – Classic Movie Review 12,950

The 1981 psychological thriller film The Fan stars Lauren Bacall, James Garner.

‘Dear Miss Ross, I am your greatest fan.’ The 1981 crazed stalker psychological thriller film The Fan stars Lauren Bacall, James Garner, Maureen Stapleton, Michael Biehn, Hector Elizondo.

Director Edward Bianchi’s 1981 psychological thriller film The Fan stars Lauren Bacall, James Garner, Maureen Stapleton, Michael Biehn, Hector Elizondo, and Anna Maria Horsford, and is based on the 1977 novel by Bob Randall.

A cast of the good and true are assembled for a fairly taut thriller, although its story of a woman dogged by a mad killer is one that we have seen many times before (and since), and so it has a slightly stale inevitability about it.

Lauren Bacall is a very welcome star presence with a decently written, perfect-fit role for her, though she is not very stretched as Sally Ross, a Broadway stage and film star whose number one fan, deranged New York City record store clerk Douglas Breen (the young Michael Biehn) goes totally gaga when she will not reply to his letters.

They start: ‘Dear Miss Ross, I am your greatest fan, because unlike the others, I want nothing from you. The only thing that matters to me is your happiness.’ Does this sound familiar? ‘I am your greatest fan.’ It has echoes later in the 1990 film Misery: ‘I am your number one fan.’  Stephen King’s source book Misery was first published by Viking Press on 8 June 1987.

Début director Edward Bianchi does well with the suspense and New York atmosphere, and in the intriguing cast James Garner has more or less nothing to do as Bacall’s ex-husband, while Maureen Stapleton fares better as her secretary and so does Hector Elizondo as the police inspector detective.

A fan’s killing of John Lennon just before the film’s release gave it an awful topicality. Lennon was shot to death by Mark David Chapman outside his apartment building The Dakota, where Bacall had been living for many years.

The screenplay is by Priscilla Chapman and John Hartwell, after previous versions of the script by several other writers were rejected.

The Fan was shot in New York City from April 1 to June 1980, and was released in the US on 15 May 1981, but was a box-office flop, costing between $9 million and $10.5 million, and grossing only $3.1 million.

Bacall criticised the film but felt her performance was among her best work. She said: ‘ The movie I wanted to make had less blood and gore, and more to do with what happens to the life of the woman.’

The cast are Lauren Bacall as Sally Ross, James Garner as Jake Berman, Maureen Stapleton as Belle Goldman, Michael Biehn as Douglas Breen, Héctor Elizondo as Inspector Raphael Andrews, Anna Maria Horsford as Emily Stolz, Kurt R Johnson as David Branum, Feiga Martinez as Elsa the maid, Parker McCormick as Hilda, Reed Jones as Choreographer, Kaiulani Lee as Douglas’s sister, Dana Delany as Record Store Saleswoman Linda, Dwight Schultz as Director, Griffin Dunne as Production Assistant, Liz Smith as herself (gossip columnist), Charles Blackwell, Terence Marinan, Lesley Rogers, Robert Weil, Ed Crowley, and Gail Benedict.

Director Tony Scott’s 1996 American sports psychological thriller film The Fan, starring Robert De Niro and Wesley Snipes, tells a similar story, and even has the same title.

© Derek Winnert 2024 – Classic Movie Review 12,950

Check out more reviews on http://derekwinnert.com