Lady Beware (1987)

This movie is a real gem, and one of reasons I'm glad I started this blog - a movie I otherwise might never have encountered, that turned out to be a sort of cult classic and an experience I really enjoyed. 

Diane Lane, in one of her earlier roles, is Katya, an artist and designer living in Pittsburgh (!), who convinces a local department store to let her redesign the windows facing the sidewalk (think Barney's, Bloomingdale's, Bergdorf Goodman's, Macy's, etc. in New York). Her redesigns are all extremely erotic and borderline transgressive and push the public into a lather. The store becomes the talk of the town and her career as an artist really begins to take off. 

There is a catch - she becomes the fixation of an extremely unpleasant doctor whose office overlooks the windows, and who becomes completely obsessed with her. He begins stalking her, invading her space, harassing her with phone calls, and generally making her miserable. He's one of the worst human beings I can remember in a movie, and the movie finds inventive ways to make him more and more unappealing. He's a monster with absolutely no redeeming elements. Eventually, however, he gets his comeuppance ... and when it happens, it's glorious and extremely satisfying. I actually cheered at the TV, a real testament to the movie's ability to evoke sympathy for our heroine. 

The movie has so many interesting things going on. The city of Pittsburgh is showcased and comes across really well - this might be the only movie I've ever seen to be completely set in Pittsburgh. It's full of interesting, quirky areas and spaces, and Katya's loft/art studio is really amazing - full of mannequins, a clawfoot tub, a canopied bed, lights hung around, and a private elevator. It's one of the best movie apartments I can remember. She takes a bus into the city every day, which is another nice touch - I can't think of many movies that feature realistic commutes like that. The bus, of course, becomes another arena for her stalker to approach her and violate a safe space. 

The windows she designs show a lot of imagination, with hints of BDSM and psychological torment all squeezed into normal domestic spaces using props and mannequins, and I am not sure who is responsible. The set designer was Tom Wells (his only credit in that role), who went on to do production design on a handfu of TV movies in the late '80s and early '90s and then seemed to exit the industry. It's too bad, because this movie has visually striking sets from start to finish.

The movie was directed by Karen Arthur, and seems to be her only feature film of the '80s, after directing a couple in the '70s (including the little-known The Mafu Cage with Carol Kane back in 1978!). She has directed many TV shows and TV movies over the years, as recently as 2008.  

Lady Beware's script appears to come from Susan Miller, who has written for several shows over the years, and most recently the webseries Anyone But Me. It's interesting that the film was written and directed by women, because it feels very centered around the fears of a woman being stalked - really gets inside the headspace and makes you feel the fear and anger. It's very effective. 

I can't find any financial data for Lady Beware, but I did find some interesting facts about the production company, the Scotti Brothers. The Scottis are two brothers who played football at my alma mater, the University of Maryland, and then they formed both a film production company as well as a record company. 

They had much more success with the music side of things, as they launched the careers of Weird Al Yankovic (!!), and Survivor (of "Eye of the Tiger" fame). The film side of their company produced and distributed Baywatch (!), and a handful of movies like He's My Girl (1987), The Iron Triangle (1989), and Shatterbrain (1991). Shatterbrain, as I only discovered today, is a telling of my very favorite story by H. P. Lovecraft - The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, from 1927. I am dying to see it. The film side seems to have folded after Baywatch, and the record company was eventually purchased by Sony. Who knew that Lady Beware is a feather in the same cap that was responsible for Weird Al Yankovic??