Eyes of Laura Mars 1978

This can easily be renamed Eyes of Faye Dunaway since her peepers are the real stars of the film. Never one of our more subtle of actresses, Dunaway who by the way still looked great at 37 acts out the role of a famous and fabulous fashion photographer with basically two expressions, shock and fear both of which are shown through her popping eyes, that at times I thought would fall out of her head on to the floor. Faye plays as I said a world famous photographer who takes grotesque and grim photographs of models in provocative poses and situations for her fashion layouts. Think Helmut Newton who actually supplied the trashy photographs used in the film. The thin plot concerns a maniac who for some reason is killing off Faye’s friends and acquaintances, the murders of which Faye can see as they happen. It turns out that besides being rich famous and fabulous Faye is also clairvoyant. So one by one they go and an impossibly young and very attractive Tommy Lee Jones playing a police detective is investigating the case and of course falls head over heels for her.  Three

years away from her career defining and career-destroying role as Joan Crawford (another eye popping actress) in the camp classic “Mommie Dearest”, Faye screams, rants and cries her way through this tepid shock and awful thriller for all she’s worth. Granted the clothes and decors are late 70’s fun, and the New York City locations can make one nostalgic for the grimy and grim days of an affordable New York City.  Was Soho ever so dirty as it is in this movie?  The supporting cast includes Brad Dourif, Raul Julia, Rose Gregorio and Rene Auberjonois. The love  theme is sung by a weak sounding Barbra Streisand who was dating Jon Peters the producer of this thing.   Directed by  Irvin Kershner with a screenplay co-written by John Carpenter (yes that John Carpenter).