Directed by Uli Edel and written by Brad Mirman (who scripted and produced another American Giallo, Knight Moves), Body of Evidence was yet one more attempt for Madonna to find the screen success that she had in Desperately Seeking Susan as a lead and not a supporting character. But just like Shanghai Surprise, Who’s That Girl — ¿Quién es esa niña? — and Bloodhounds of Broadway, this was critically decimated, and audiences tuned out after the first week in theaters. Strangely, it was released in Japan along with another Madonna movie, the Abel Ferrara-directed Dangerous Game, as Body and Body II. And it’s totally a Giallo by way of the erotic thriller. I mean, if Madonna had someone with black gloves and a knife stalking her, I might lose my mind. There’s still time to make this happen.The Material Girl is Rebecca Carlson, a woman who has led two older men to the brink of the Pearly Gates thanks to her abilities in bed. And maybe some cocaine. But totally because her vagina is Kali, goddess of destruction in labia majora and minora form.
As she proclaims her innocence, Frank Dulaney (Willem Dafoe) becomes her lawyer. There’s no way that she killed Andrew Marsh (Michael Forest), just as there’s no way she could have shtupped Jeffrey Roston (Frank Langella) to the point that he feared for his life. As for Frank, despite being married to Sharon (Julianne Moore, who regrets this movie and the nude scenes she did), reacts to everything Rebecca does as if he’s a wolf in a Tex Avery cartoon. It’s shocking — if this movie is shocking at all, mind you — that no one says, “Frank, put away your dick.”
But he doesn’t, and she restrains him and pours candle wax all over him, which was shocking in 1993, as would be public sex and handjobs on elevators surrounded by people.
Everyone wants Rebecca, which would have been the title for this in the 1940s — and it wouldn’t have that handjob scene — because, well, everyone does. Like Dr. Alan Paley (Jürgen Prochnow), who was trying to get her into bed and instead testifies that she tried to kill his patient when she turned him down. All this court testimony makes Frank think that maybe Rebecca isn’t the pure girl who scalded his balls just a few weeks ago with a Yankee Candle.
Even though Frank can get two big wins — secretary Joanne Braslow (Anne Archer) probably gave the old man, the coke and surprise witness Jeffrey Roston is really gay, which broke Rebecca’s heart — before she gets off. I mean, she gets off the charges, not gets off as she does throughout the movie, like when Frank finally tackles her and handcuffs her like he’s Michael Douglas instead of the Green Goblin.
At the end of the case, she whispers in his ear that she did it. Defense lawyer Robert Garrett (Joe Mantegna) looks super sad, as does Frank, who follows her home — his marriage is over — and learns that she’d be sleeping with Paley as well; he deals with this news by shooting Rebecca twice and knocks her out a window, just in case we need to totally have proof that this evil woman, this seductress, this jezebel, has med her Hayes Code death. Should a car drive her over, and then someone asks if she’s really dead, followed by graphic footage of her body evacuating itself of feces? She’s dead. Real dead.
Frank goes to fix his marriage and tells Garrett he should have won. Instead of being calm, he replies, “I did.” Dude, Madonna is dead. You don’t have to rub it on a man who played Max Schreck and Jesus Christ’s face. You wouldn’t do that to the other guy who pulled that off, Klaus Kinski. Don’t do it to Willem.
Richard Riehle plays a cop in this, and every time I see him, I smile and think of his many roles.
Madonna, Dafoe and Edel spent two weeks rehearsing the sex scenes, which had no body doubles — although Madonna is doubled on the posters by Tori Sinclair, who appeared in fetish videos and Joe D’Amato’s The Hyena under the name Linda Comshav — and Dafoe really tied up, just waiting to get that candle wax all over his putz. Despite perfect camera placement and lighting, she also improvised the scene where she jilled off, or so they’d like you to believe. Despite all this sex, producer Dino De Laurentiis was angry that she released Sex two weeks before the film came out, just like the Dereks having Bo’s nudes in Playboy before Bolero escaped into multiplexes. This is better than that movie, but saying that is perhaps the slightest praise I can muster.
Just like a porn star who doesn’t want to step in any man gravy puddles, Madonna keeps her high heels on in every sex scene. She must have liked the movie because she used samples of it in two of her songs, “Erotica” and “Justify My Love,” which led Wayne Campbell to exclaim, “Take a look at the unit on that guy.”
There were two endings, and they chose the one in which the bad girl gets her comeuppance — no pun intended.
You can watch this on Tubi.
For so long, I had this movie and Call Me together on my Tubi My List because they looked like they went together. This was a total coincidence.
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