Deadly Companion a.k.a. Double Negative is a 1980 thriller directed by George Bloomfield and starring Anthony Perkins, Susan Clark and Michael Sarrazin.
Journalist Michael Taylor(Sarrazin) is coming home from an institution where he has been for some time. His girlfriend, Paula(Clark) comes to pick him up. They drive back to her place where he will be staying. He has problems with his memory. His wife was murdered and he can't remember anything about the night that it happened. He is also having flashbacks about the time when he was a prisoner in the Middle East.
Paula is being blackmailed by Lawrence Miles(Perkins). He is a sleazy guy and he lets her know that he knows that Michael is out of the institution. She offers him money but he thinks that it is not enough. To make things even stranger, there is a private detective called Lester Harlen(Howard Duff) and he has been hired by a Dr.Klifter(Kenneth Welsh) to follow Michael around. Basically, the rest of the movie revolves around Michael digging up information on his wife's murder and Miles looking menacing and moody and Paul looking worried all of the time.
The film comes to a close with Miles demanding 10,000 dollars from Paul because he saw something the night that Michael's wife died and he is hiding it for a price. It turns out that Miles was having an affair with Michael's wife. He was there the night that she died. He didn't kill her though. He tries to escape after killing the private investigator. He is caught as he is trying to leave and shot by security.
Paula is relieved and she finally tells Michael the truth. HE was the killer of his wife. He knew that she was having an affair and he went mad. Paula helped him to get out of there and she looked after him after she had witnessed the murder. The movie ends there.
This film was all over the place. There is some silly scenes and just stupid flashbacks. Nothing is explained really and putting John Candy on the cover of the movie is so silly as he has about 2 minutes in this as does Michael Ironside. Perkins is the ONLY reason that I watched this. He was good as the sleazy Miles and he kept me watching until the end. There were some really baffling things about this film and it just wasn't very good. If you are a Perkins fan, then you might like to see him in this, as I did, but if you are not, then avoid! I will give it a 3/10 and that is just because of Perkins.
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2 comments:
Okay! I saw the trailer and this movie came rushing back to me in all it's glory. Michael Sarazin was in Frankenstein: The True Story on PBS in the early 70s. I remember watching him as the monster. He was a hot thing back in that time period for about 2 minutes. My fav line from Tony is, "After what's her face got snuffed?" I burst out laughing because I haven't heard "what's her face" since the 80s when I was in high school!
Perkins had the market cornered on intense, smarmy guys back then and he played them with relish. Most people didn't know that he was a teen idol with a Top 10 record called Moonlight Swim back in the 50s. Really good assessment of this movie. I may have to dig this one up.
Yes this is worth watching if you like Perkins.Apart from him, it was a total mess.Flashbacks, private eyes,etc.It just was not good.The blackmail angle was interesting but nothing else was!I am glad that I saw it as I had never heard of it before it popped up on TV.
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