Dressed to Kill (1980) - Newspaper Ad {San Francisco Examiner - July 22, 1980]

This was one of the more memorable movie going experiences of 1980 for me. Being that the opening sequence was, without a doubt, the most sexually explicit material I had ever seen. In a movie, at least. I had already thumbed through an issue of Playboy or two by that time.

But, like Alien the previous year, Dressed to Kill did provide a memorable post-viewing comment from my dad to my mother, when we got home from the matinee showing. "It starts with this woman masturbating in the shower. It was so explicit I started thinking I had brought the boys to the wrong kind of movie, but it didn't last long and the rest wasn't as bad. But there was a moment, there..."

I think this was the movie that made me a Brian De Palma fan. While I will acknowledge that there are aspects to the plot that are indeed very problematic, in regard to its clear transphobia. The movie is also very tongue in cheek and laced with a heaping helping of blackly comedic irony. Certain scenes are so slathered in comedic irony that the film brushes up against the line of creative self-parody.

John McCarty, in his seminal Splatter Movies: Breaking the Last Taboo of the Screen, said that, "Dressed to Kill may not be Psycho, but it is certainly a very skillfully made and entertaining copy."

I agree. This one really needs to be added to my blu-ray collection.

 

Phantom of the Paradise (1974) - Newspaper Ad [Oakland Tribune]

June 2, 1976

While Brian De Palma's cult oddity Phantom of the Paradise was first released in late 1974, I did not see it on the big screen until this 1976 re-release.

One of the things I truly enjoy about clipping and sharing these vintage ads is learning and processing the difference between when something happened versus how I remember it having happened. Sometimes the history and the memory align, sometimes it does not. This is an example of the former.

I remember sitting in the Alameda Southshore, which was still called the Showcase at this time, and recognizing Rod Serling's distinctive voice speaking the opening narration. A voice that I recognized as the host of Night Gallery, not The Twilight Zone. Because I would not see an episode of The Twilight Zone until 1978 or 79. Maybe? Oh, and my I remember my first ever Twilight Zone episode being the Charles Beaumont scripted A Nice Place to Visit, which remains one of my all time favorite episodes.

Phantom of the Paradise would also serve as my first ever Brian De Palma movie. And a wonderful and memorable introduction it was, I think.

As far as actual history differing, or merging, with personal memory goes. A check of the theatre listing revealed...

That Phantom of the Paradise was double-billed with another, far less stellar, childhood memory of mine. The painfully unfunny (at least that is how I remember it) Old Dracula. Which means that I saw them on this double-bill, although I did not remember that as being the case.

But... my memory of where I was seated, and thus how the screen image was positioned before for me, for both films were identical. Why I do not remember seeing these two together, I have no idea. But see them I did. Together, at the Alameda Showcase, in 1976. At the tender age of eight or nine.
 

Obsession (1976) - Newspaper Ad

San Francisco Examiner - August 22, 1976

Full page ad hyping the upcoming release of Obsession, the first of two impressive feature films from Brian De Palma in 1976. The second would be Carrie, which would open just a few months after the release of Obsession.

Raising Cain (1992) - Newspaper Ad [San Francisco Examiner - August 7, 1992]

As much as I would have liked to have been able to see Raising Cain on the big screen, it was not to be. It was a home video viewing for me. 

When I did catch up with it, I found it a delirious and chaotic mess of an entertaining movie. One that, just like Body Double, walked the line separating self-awareness and self-parody. All of De Palma's movies have elements of black comedy and camp to them. Some are more restrained than others.

I remember Raising Cain as being utterly unrestrained. De Palma just wanting to have fun with his tropes and obsessions. I had fun watching him do so.