Great Moments in Movie Shelves #136

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It is Michael Caine's 85th birthday today and so let's give some love to one of my favorite (although dated and controversial) performances, that of the "psycho transsexual" psychiatrist Dr. Robert Elliott in Brian DePalma's 1980 trash classic Dressed to Kill. Or let's at least give some love to his office shelves anyway...

... which a surprising amount of the film's action takes place in front of. One of my favorite blink-and-you'll-miss-it touches to the movie is this isn't actually Dr. Elliott's desk that he is always sitting at - the first time we meet him, when Angie Dickinson comes in for her first therapy session, he says that his secretary named Mary is on vacation - we never see this Mary person, just the doctor sitting at her desk constantly. Mary who?? Foreshadowing!

And speaking of Angie this scene also highlights one of my favorite Hitchcockian costume choices that DTK makes - think Marion Crane's bra reversal -  Angie wears all white over the course of her scenes but she's no virgin; quite the opposite. She's insatiable, yadda yadda, downfall. But then when you cut to Nancy Allen's half of the film - Nancy shows up in the office and tries to seduce him...

... and she wears all black. Plus the scene is at night, all noirish shadows, as opposed to the bright flatness that bathed Angie's session. But Goth-Whore Nancy is really the film's Good Gal Friday.

She seems much more comfortable (as would we all) in the giant man pajamas we see her flopping around at one point in the movie - these black lacy things are drag for her. DePalma further fucks with the white/good black/bad dynamic later in the movie with the hyper-sexualized nurse uniforms. Not that it matters - no matter what any woman's wearing she ends up with red on her hands...