Although the era of “free love” that commenced in the 1960s was initially looked upon by men with salivation over the opportunity to “get the milk for free” without having to “buy the cow” (that old grotesque chestnut), a new view on the matter was gradually starting to take shape in the 1970s, eventually morphing into the ultimate cautionary tale about “putting your dick in crazy,” 1987’s Fatal Attraction. But it’s quite obvious that said movie owes a great debt to the blueprint it all started with: 1971’s Play Misty For Me.
As Clint Eastwood’s first outing as director, the film might have felt like an unusual choice for the star best known as a “hero” of Western movies, and yet, who knew better than Eastwood what it meant to be “like catnip for the ladies” at that time? What’s more, the same year as Play Misty For Me was released, The Beguiled came out as well. Also a psychological thriller starring Eastwood that involved “crazy women.” Or rather, women who have gone crazy with lust. While Don Siegel’s version of The Beguiled (before Sofia Coppola came along) is based on Thomas P. Cullinan’s 1966 novel of the same name, Play Misty For Me wouldn’t get a novelization until after the screenplay by Jo Heims and Dean Riesner was written. Another “don’t become this woman” narrative that emerged in the late 70s, Looking For Mr. Goodbar, was also based on a novel, specifically by Judith Rossner. The novel itself based on the story of Roseann Quinn’s 1973 murder by a man she picked up at a bar (what was then called a “singles bar,” despite such a modifying adjective not really needing to be there). Which is exactly what Evelyn Draper (Jessica Walter) does in her bid to ensnare local Carmel radio DJ Dave Garner (Eastwood) in her spiderweb of calculated lies. The lies that include her presentation as a casual, cool, all-around “groovy chick” who just wants a one-night stand with “no strings attached.” This being the phrase that, as far as “smart men” are concerned, connotes the famous last words of a woman “trying to get her hooks in” under false pretenses.
Apparently, though, Dave isn’t exactly a smart man. In fact, he seems so casually nonchalant in the way that only someone from California can be that there are many times when the viewer wants to shake him and shout, “Call the fuckin’ cops on this bitch, okay?!” This, at certain moments, leading one to ask who the real “psycho” is: Evelyn or Dave. Because surely any sane person surely would have sent up a red flag to authorities soon after Evelyn starts to openly stalk him at his house and his favorite local hangout, The Sardine Factory (still standing in Carmel to this very day), which also happens to be the place where she first let him believe that he was luring her. This goes for Dan Gallagher (Michael Douglas) with Alex Forrest (Glenn Close) in Fatal Attraction as well, only with Dan it makes a bit more sense as he’s still trying to protect his reputation as a “family man.” In either situation, however, the failure of both men to seek help more immediately is a direct commentary on the extent of male pride. The kind of hubris that 1) makes them believe they can do whatever they want in the first place and 2) not face any sort of fallout for it.
Accordingly, Dave decides to write Evelyn off as nothing more than a “California kook” (that’s the trouble with California kooks: you never know for sure just how kooky they can get) as he goes back to pursuing “the one that got away,” Tobie Williams (Donna Mills), who he learns is back in town after four months spent hiding out from him and his philandering ways in Sausalito. In fact, it’s Tobie’s house we first see Dave skulking around at the beginning of the movie, a stalker element at play in two forms: for one, he’s prowling outside her house uninvited and, for another, there’s a painting of him in the window that indicates someone (i.e., Tobie) is rather fond of him. Or at least she was until he kept “catting around” with all the other available women in Carmel. And yes, there were probably a lot more to choose from back then because it was still vaguely affordable. Even to someone as “cuckoo” and ostensibly unemployed as Evelyn, who seems to spend all of her free time tracking Dave like a hunted animal. Tobie, meanwhile, can be as hippie-dippy and artistic as she wants to be thanks to having the ability to rent out a room in her picturesque house (left to her, conveniently, by her father) overlooking the sea (it is, after all, Carmel-by-the-Sea). The bottom line is, maybe the curmudgeonly bartender at The Sardine Factory is right when he shades Dave with the line, “Heard your show tonight. Sure beats the hell out of working for a living.”
With everyone so loosey-goosey about work (“Hey, it’s California, man”), no wonder Evelyn has enough time to develop a near-erotomaniac obsession with Dave. This in contrast to the “career woman” stylings of Alex in Fatal Attraction. A film which originated from James Dearden’s fifty-minute 1980 movie, Diversion (and yes, Dearden would go on to write the Fatal Attraction screenplay). Despite their “coastal differences,” Alex initially tries to “play it cool” in much the same way as Evelyn, offering sex up to Dan with a casual shrug and reminder, “We’re two adults.” This after asking seductively if Dan is “discreet.” The implication being: can he keep a secret about having an affair? Little does he know, it’s Alex who lacks all discretion (despite her insistence to the contrary). Much the same as Evelyn, who turns up at Dave’s house in the dead of night begging to come in. When he won’t let her, she drops her coat to reveal she’s naked so that Dave will bring her inside to avert any potential prying neighbors’ eyes. While Dave might not be a married man, he’s certainly got a lot to lose now that he’s convinced Tobie to get back together with him because he’s finally decided he’s ready for monogamy. Evelyn’s fierce and tireless presence in his life doesn’t exactly make that assertion seem true.
Alex couldn’t care less about getting in the way of Dan and his “old lady” either. Except, in contrast to Tobie, Beth (Anne Archer), is the embodiment of the “safe,” “boring” wife trope. Tobie, instead, has far more appeal than Evelyn for her “California cool” look and attitude. Indeed, the tropes presented in Fatal Attraction are far more cliche and damaging with regard to the representation of women. This no doubt because they’re presented through Dearden’s male perspective.
As for Jo Heims, the “female representative” of the writing duo behind Play Misty For Me, she was the one who initially wrote the script. With later input and “polishes” from Riesner making one wonder if the overall narrative came across as slightly less misogynistic in its original form. At the same time, the internalized misogyny of most women during this period in American history (and also during this one) might have meant the script wouldn’t have been all that different from its original form. For both Evelyn and Alex lack much in the way of a, shall we say, “complex backstory.” Each one is simply a “desperate woman” who has decided to latch onto a guy who was at the wrong place at the wrong time. Or, in Dave’s case, on the wrong radio airwaves at the wrong time.
Similar to Alex’s outrage about Dan just deciding to “throw her away” after one fuck (even though both parties agreed it couldn’t be anything more), Evelyn cry-yells at Dave, “Why are you playing these games? Why are you pretending you don’t love me?” Dave snaps back, “You haven’t got the vaguest idea what love is. We don’t even know each other.” Dan feels trapped in the same fucked-up scenario wherein he’s effectively stuck with a woman who got too drunk off the oxytocin release while they had sex. Both women’s vacillation between the “tactics” of sobbing/sadness displays and verbal venom unleashed upon the object of their so-called affection are also consistent throughout the films. Evelyn even sets Alex up with the attention-grabbing emotional manipulation of slitting her wrists when Dave tries, yet again, to rid himself of her. Though, “at least,” she waits a little more than one fuck to start displaying that kind of behavior. Alex, not so much, delving right into her Madama Butterfly behavior the second she senses Dan is really leaving and can’t be talked out of it again with more faux jovial convincing. Just as Misty can’t be bothered with pretending to play the “laid-back dame” anymore either. Which, one supposes, is the only shared trait between crazy women who live in California and New York, respectively.
And yes, ableist language or not, the only word to describe this pair of obsessive temptresses-turned-nightmares is “crazy.” This being part and parcel of the era during which each movie came out. For it was apparent that, as mentioned, pop culture wanted to ensure that male viewers were “scared straight.” Aware that the boon of “free love” that arose in the 60s wasn’t really free at all. It came with a price for men who thought they were finally going to get to “bang a broad” without fear of her wanting to “tie him down.” The message of Play Misty For Me and Fatal Attraction is that a man will always be punished for such foolishness. In this sense, they serve not only as fables to uphold the capitalistic status quo ensured by monogamous marriage, but to remind men that treating women, no matter how “chill” or “up for it” they might seem, disposably is not going to fly as it once did in a pre-mid-twentieth century world. Except that, oh wait, it actually does, with Evelyn and Alex both meeting brutal, watery deaths in the final scenes.
