Dressed to Kill (Brian De Palma, 1980, USA)
Dressed to Kill is wildly regarded as one of the finest mid-period De Palma films, and for good reason. The film represents a compromise between the director's commercial impulses and his more idiosyncratic bent. While not the first De Palma film that owes a significant debt to Alfred Hitchcock, it is perhaps the director's most strongly Hitchcockian effort. The film also is perhaps one of the finest examples of the American giallo - stateside manifestations of the garish, hyper-stylized crime/murder thrillers that were coming out of Italy during the 1970s. That's not to say that the film is without controversy. Even when Dressed to Kill came out in 1980, there were protests. Time hasn't done the film many favors regarding a particular well-known plot twist, but if one takes the film at face value, it is possible to overlook certain elements. Like Psycho , the film kills off its initial heroine very early on. This comes after one of the film's most iconic momen
