Director: Ed Bianchi
Cast: Lauren Bacall, James Garner, Maureen Stapleton, Michael Biehn, Hector Elizondo

Each and every one of us has people, living or dead, that we admire greatly. For example, I admire Juan Pujol Garcia, a Spaniard during World War II who detested fascism so much that he wanted to spy for the Allied forces. He was turned down, but that didn't stop him - he made a false identity for himself, posing as a pro-Nazi Spanish military officer, and offered his services to the Nazis. Once accepted as a spy, Garcia then proceeded to give the Nazis a non-stop supply of completely bogus information that had the effect of complicating the Nazi war machine, though the Nazis never caught on. Eventually, the Allied forces got wind of Garcia's efforts, and were so impressed they contacted him to ask if he'd like to do his thing under their direct support, which Garcia jumped at. Garcia's subsequent work was credited for ensuring the eventual Allied victory in Europe, which got him awarded the MBE from the British government - while also getting the Iron Cross from the Nazis before the close of the war. However, I am pretty sure that generally the public tends to admire people who are in the entertainment industry, particularly actors. I admit that even I have been a little starstruck at times. Why do we put actors in such high esteem? I think there are a few reasons. Stars are often wealthy from their work, so that gives them an aura of power. But I think a bigger reason is that when we see them on the screen in various roles, there is a feeling of not only the power of them managing to put aside their true personalities and becoming a different person, but that the end results of them doing that make them come across as superior than the average Joe. It's no wonder then that many of us have dreams of meeting these famous actors, getting to talk to them, and even dream of impressing a movie star enough that he or she will be romantically interested in you.

As I said earlier, there are times even I get a little starstruck. You might be wondering what I would do if I were to be walking down the street and see an actor I greatly admire walking my way. My answer may surprise a lot of you, but I will say it anyway - what I would do first is think silently, "Oh, cool," then immediately take my eyes off that actor, then pass him or her by like he or she was just an ordinary Joe or Joette, and not say a word at all to that actor. Oh, I admit that in my younger adolescent years, I probably would have done something in that situation, ranging from giving him or her a compliment about a particular role he or she played in the past, to asking for an autograph. But in the years since my adolescent years, I have learned a lot about actors' lives out and about in the public, and frequently it seems to be sheer hell. Would you like every time you leave your home to be constantly stared at, asked inane questions, or asked for autographs or photos? Personally I am a very private person, and I know that if I were famous, such non-stop interactions with the public would soon drive me into an insane fury. I heard one story stating that Sylvester Stallone has to wear a button on his shirt stating, "NO AUTOGRAPHS, PLEASE" every time he goes out into public. Believe me, I have great sympathy for Stallone and other high-profile actors who are constantly pestered by the public. I would never want to become a typical yahoo and bring grief to someone famous (or not). Film critic Roger Ebert once said that while it is okay to give a celebrity a friendly and silent nod or smile, anything further that that is just plain wrong unless the celebrity is at something like an autograph convention - then there is more freedom with asking questions, or asking for autographs and pictures.

So hopefully now you understand why I respect famous actors' privacy, and that I would never go up and approach them... especially if the actor in question was the notoriously cranky Tommy Lee Jones. Unfortunately, there are a lot of inconsiderate people out there in the public, as you can imagine. Even worse, there are some people who take their interest in a famous actor way too far. I am of course talking about celebrity stalking. No doubt over the years you have heard various cases of this, ranging from when Michael J. Fox was sent over 5000 letters from a deranged fan that was obsessed with him, to the tragedy of actress Rebecca Schaeffer being tracked down to her home by a fan who then shot and killed her. Although the actions by these stalkers are in one way detestable in my mind, to a degree they also kind of fill me with an uneasy curiosity Why do some fans get so obsessed by a famous actor or actress? What would they want to say or do if they were ever to get face to face with that actor or actress? I thought that The Fan, one of the first movies to deal with the idea of celebrity stalking, might give some answers to that, especially since it was a high-class major Hollywood studio production. In this stalking story, the celebrity in question is a famous movie and stage actress named Sally Ross (Lauren Bacall, The Big Sleep). At the start of the movie, she is dealing with the stress of rehearsing in an upcoming New York stage musical despite her advancing age, while her former actor husband Jake Berman (James Garner, A Man Called Sledge), who she still has some feelings for, has come to town for a movie role. What Sally doesn't know is that a local lowly record store clerk named Douglas Breen (Michael Biehn, Timebomb) has become romantically obsessed with her, and has been writing countless explicit letters to her. These letters don't get past Sally's assistant Belle Goldman (Maureen Stapleton, Reds), who eventually writes back to Douglas with a stern command to cut it out. Douglas takes this very badly, and not only soon sets his sights onto Belle, but eventually his building frustrations take him to the point where he has utter hate for Sally. A sympathetic police inspector (Hector Elizondo, Valdez Is Coming) comes in to protect Sally and track down Douglas, but this doesn't stop Douglas' plans for Sally to have a bloody end at his hands.

With such a respectable and talented cast of already famous actors and actors who would later achieve fame, it's clear that The Fan was not made to be your typical psycho stalker movie. Some of the members of the cast do manage to make good with the opportunity and material given to them, the clear winner being Stapleton. An accomplished actress who was acclaimed throughout her career, Stapleton is spunky, assertive, and completely believable as a woman who is extremely professional at her job while showing the right amount of compassion and protection of her boss/friend. The movie really fires up in her scenes. Elizondo has somewhat less screen time and we don't really learn a lot about his character, but he somehow manages to forge ahead with the little he has to come across as officially professional and by the book, but in his eyes, we see that he does care about the welfare of the people he's protecting. On the other hand, Garner (who later admitted in his memoir that he despised this movie) is just content to float through the movie on his charisma alone. This may be in part because not only does his character disappear from the narrative for a significant amount of time, in the end his character's appearances really doesn't seem to serve any purpose for the narrative. If his character were completely removed from the screenplay, things would end exactly how they do in the actual filmed results. (The only possible explanation for including this character in this movie was to have a big opposite sex costar to attract a broader audience, as was possibly the reason for Linda Evans being in Tom Horn despite being given nothing to do in that film.) As for Bacall, her performance is all over the map. Bacall does create some real chemistry in every scene when she's paired up with Stapleton, and when her character indulges in subtlety (like making a little dig against a character she's talking to), she is perfectly fine. However, when her character has to express herself in a grand manner, not just in the embarrassing scenes where she is dancing and singing for her stage show, Bacall's performance just feels plain awkward. She seems to know she's out of her league for a movie like this, and her uncertainty makes her character feel out of place.

I think one reason why Bacall may have been uneasy in her performance was that despite being top-billed and ostensibly being the central character, she wasn't given much to work with. I never got a sense that the Sally Ross character was a big important star. We learn next to nothing about her background, next to nothing about her viewpoints, and next to nothing about her motives. She simply isn't given enough details for us in the audience to really care about her. For that matter, Biehn's psycho Douglas Breen character is also not thoroughly explored. Aside from learning he's in a menial job, has a quite decent New York apartment for someone with a menial job, has a sister who is shown early on and is subsequently never seen or brought up again, we don't know anything that may explain what makes him tick. Why is he a fan of Sally Ross? He says in a voiceover that she is his inspiration and he adores her, but exactly how she inspires him and makes him feel romantically towards her is not the least bit revealed. Biehn manages occasionally to rise up despite the circumstances (there's a nice scene where he gets tongue-tied with his boss), but in the end no actor could do much with such a weak character. The screenplay (by two screenwriters who never wrote anything before - or after - this movie) doesn't just blow it with the characters, but stumbles a lot when it comes to telling the story. There are plenty of idiotic touches along the way that range from the psycho believing Sally Ross knows his name and address despite more than once seeing that she hasn't actually read his letters, to Sally somehow managing to stay overnight in her home when hours earlier it became a major crime scene.

The main fault with The Fan's screenplay is how slow for the most part the movie unfolds. The first death in the movie doesn't happen until the movie has passed the halfway point, for one thing. Even when a scene comes up that provides some importance to the plot, it plays out in a way that has you quickly saying out loud, "Yeah, yeah, just get on with it." Strangely, there are also a number of scenes that go by too quickly. Scenes start up with what seems to be major and immediate consequences the scenes' characters will have to deal with in a few seconds, but then the scene is abruptly stopped before these consequences can be dealt with. First time director Ed Bianchi (who later on went to produce the TV show Deadwood) most memorable directorial technique, based on what we see here, is to jam an excessive number of quick fades-to-black throughout the running time. Oh, I admit he does have an eye for making some striking visuals (with some assistance by cinematographer Dick Bush, who later lensed The Philadelphia Experiment), and he does really capture the feeling of New York City in the early 1980s - cold, dirty, and more often than not taking place in indoor locations that are aged and somewhat lacking in space. However, he seems to have no grasp as to how to properly stage a scene of horror or tension. When the psycho Douglas starts doing his thing, the attack sequences are not only rapidly edited in a way that prevents any building uneasiness forming that would subsequently and suddenly explode, these attack scenes abruptly end before we can get a feeling of any bloody consequences. Bianchi especially blows it in the climactic sequence, with there being absolutely no punch, especially with it using some of Pino Donaggio's (Crawlspace) often unfitting music score for the movie; the music should have been slower and creepier instead of sounding almost light-hearted at times. With that, I have a good feeling that by now you know why The Fan has been pretty much forgotten today instead of having any kind of audience that would adore or defend it. You know, rabid fans.

(P.S. - In my next review, I will cover another stalker movie, though one a lot better than this one, despite it being not aimed at the high-class crowd and instead towards the grindhouse and drive-in crowd... giving evidence to the theory that it's more important how a movie is made than its actual base subject matter.)

(Posted December 25, 2023)