1987 Directed by Curtis Hanson
Baltimore, Maryland. Sylvia sees a girl being attacked from her lover Terry's bedroom window. The assailant flees and his victim is saved. But that same night another girl is found murdered.
Steve Guttenberg Elizabeth McGovern Isabelle Huppert Paul Shenar Carl Lumbly Wallace Shawn Frederick Coffin Brad Greenquist Robert Schenkkan Maury Chaykin Sara Carlson Mark Margolis Kate McGregor-Stewart Penelope Allen Myvanwy Jenn Francis Guinan Kevin O'Rourke Sydney Conrad Shapiro Wendy Womble Libra Marrian Scott Colson Carl Whitney Richard McGough Jodi Long Richard K. Olsen Leon Rippy John Patrick Maloney Kerry Lang J. Michael Hunter Show All…
Ellen Heuer Gary Alexander Tom Bellfort Dan O'Connell Chris Jenkins Jerry Ross Don Digirolamo Martin Maryska Sukey Fontelieu Bill Daly
Vidnet i vinduet, Makuuhuoneen ikkuna, 窓・ベッドルームの女, Miegamojo langas, Vitnet i vinduet, Prozor spavaće sobe
there exists a (Curtis Hanson!) movie wherein Isabelle Huppert has sex with Steve Guttenberg and this is that movie. lots of sad horny jazz and possibly the best Wallace Shawn drop i've ever seen.
If you're having sex with Isabelle Huppert in a movie, it's already too late for you.
Guttenberg violates several cardinal laws in this film. He has sex with his bosses' wife. He has sex with his bosses' French wife. He he has sex with his bosses' French wife, who is Isabelle Huppert. And he calls the police to report a crime.
"Sometimes people see more than they realize."
If you title a film The Bedroom Window, man, there better be heat. I can't say that this Curtis Hanson-directed thriller starring the ever so hirsute Steve Guttenberg qualifies; even Elizabeth McGovern isn't convinced. But hey, at least I liked the suspense element better on this rewatch! And Isabelle Huppert looks like a dream, even when she couldn't possibly be more bored with Steve's untrimmed chest (sorry, not every Train reference can be stopped in time).
More importantly, though, at least one star in my rating belongs to the soundtrack's inclusion of one of my absolute favorite songs, this Val Young classic dripping with sweat. Goddamn, did Rick James ever have the right touch for writing and producing hot tracks in the 80s.
"I was just something for her to do."
"I can think of worse things to do."
It feels like there should be a name for the specific subset of thrillers where a slightly dim-witted hero digs themself a deeper and deeper hole through ill-advised or short-sighted decisions. (In the case of The Bedroom Window, some of the hero’s decisions are literally short-sighted.) Maybe we should call these movies “squirmers,” because the physiological response they elicit (at least from me) isn’t so much tension as pure discomfort. You sit there watching the protagonist screw things up worse and worse and there’s nothing you can do but sweat it out and hope it works out in the end. And The Bedroom Window is a very squirmy squirmer.
One of those movies in which everyone makes the absolute worst possible decision at every available opportunity.
curtis hanson mostly doing a jazzy diet de palma riff but doing it not half-bad and with a pretty fun twist on the rear window gimmick that sees a chilly, cheating isabelle huppert witness an attempted murder by an evil ginger incel serial killer and then proceed to convince her gullible bozo lover steve guttenberg to report it to the cops in her stead creating a series of farcical fallouts for them both. it kinda collapses under the ridiculousness of decisions being made in its climax because it's otherwise so flatly expository/procedural about its mystery where hitch or brian would opt for the delirious obsession and paranoia, especially during that staged, erotic baiting sequence by a pretty great elizabeth mcgovern…
"Smooth stroke is the key to this game."
Terry Lambert (Steve Guttenberg) is having an affair with his bosses wife Sylvia (Isabelle Huppert). One night after they sneak away from an office party early to hook up, Sylvia witnesses a violent attack from Terry's bedroom window. Since bystanders step in and the assailant flees they don't report the incident. However, when the newspapers the next day reveal another woman killed mere blocks away, their conscience awakens. To protect their secret, Terry decides to give Sylvia's statement to the cops thinking it's all they will need to help catch the murderer. Things quickly get far more complicated than a simple statement, and Terry finds himself drawn deeper and deeper into a…
Sometimes it’s nice to turn on some mindless ’80’s potboiler on a Saturday night after navigating through a bunch of heady think-pieces. This is one of those archetypal innocent man wrongly accused mystery-thrillers, with Steve Guttenberg as the working professional who is slightly flakey enough to make yo-yo errors in judgment. He is sleeping with married woman Isabelle Huppert (yes peeps, check out what ’80’s Isabelle looks like – she’s unfailing French chic), and Huppert witnesses a rape and battery outside their window at two in the morning. But she’s supposed to be home with her own husband! Guttenberg, who was in the bathroom, will make a witness statement to police, and there will be enough holes in his statement…
The Bedroom Window. 1987. Directed by Curtis Hanson.
The Bedroom Window with Steve Guttenberg, Elizabeth McGovern, and Isabelle Huppert was a plot twisting, action packed noir. Glancing out one’s window can put one’s life in a great deal of jeopardy and suspense. Isabelle Huppert witnesses a crime after she has made love with Steve Guttenberg. However, there are many variables at play here and for many reasons Guttenberg doesn’t want her to get involved. Anne Holden’s novel was creatively adapted into screenplay format by Curtis Hanson. This film has the feel of an Hitchcock movie where the wrong person is considered guilty for a crime. My complaint about the film is that Huppert never takes responsibility and her wealthy husband…
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How many neon ravens live outside or inside of places of business in Baltimore? I am guessing quite a lot. I will say that the bar that Elizabeth McGovern works at in The Bedroom Window, Edgar's, has the most 80's Edgar Allan Poe tribute decor an establishment could reasonably or even not-so-reasonably aspire to in 1987. Not only is the logo/signage of Edgar's a blue neon raven head, but the interior of the bar is decorated in red neon grid and facsimiles of Poe Manuscripts as well as Neon Poe Phrases like "NEVERMORE" and "Annabel Lee" mounted on walls or projected into space as art installations. There are also small antechambers decorated in semi-19th Century style with fringey lamps and…
Hitchcock on the avenyuuuuee, except Steve Guttenberg is no Jimmy Stewart and Hanson is no Hitchcock, he isn’t even De Palma. Subpar erotic thriller with hateful pacing and blunders of judgement, like for instance, dude, either mind your business or except the fact that you aren’t going to be able to sleep with Isabelle Huppert anymore. Alright maybe that is a bit more of a quandary than I’d initially thought; the fact is, Hanson gets too carried away with the twists here and Guttenberg really cannot carry a movie like this as a leading man. Would have been way more interesting to see Wallace Shawn in the lead role instead of his (fantastic) small part as a razor sharp defense attorney… Hollywood refuses to give us what we actually want.
