Sisters (1973)

The post-war baby boomer directors such as Spielberg, Lucas or Brian DePalma, probably did their best work in the 70’s through the 90’s. One of the most underrated was Brian DePalma, primarily because he worked in thriller and crime films. He is a master of the visual and of camera work, since he made short student movies as a New Jersey kid in the 1960’s. There is something about the richness of his camera work and his taking chances with stories and characters and even the visuals of his movies that always gets you to watch them - even if you find his storytelling vulgar and over the top. Definitely he was born with a talent for movie making and he learned from older Hollywood thriller and action films, and suspense stories.

There is a great deal of Douglas Sirk and Hitchcock in him as well as a certain taste for gallows humor. He paints with a wide, handsome brush. He is still making movies on and off and was an inspiration to a young Quentin Tarantino, it has been said. He was making independent comedies and New York avante-garde movies until he made it with “Sisters” (1973). Done with an unknown at that time, pre-”Superman”, Margot Kidder, and not a very well known cast and an underrated actress, Jennifer Salt. It definitely takes from Hithcock’s “Vertigo” and “Rear Window” in some scenes.

The movie begins with a parody of a game show that’s famous for its humor and absurdity. A woman wins a date with a lover. After they return to the apartment he ends up in a fate you can imagine. A woman looking in a window, it’s again Hitchcock’s “Rear Window”, sees the killing but the police won’t believe her. It’s suggested that there is a twin responsible for the crimes.

A private detective, played not badly by a young Charles Durning, steps in. The woman goes on a life or death mission to prove there has been a killing but no one believes her. It leads her to an old doctor, not badly played by the character actor, Barnard Hughes. In addition, there is an even worse doctor played by the underrated, gone now, William Finley, who brightened up a lot of terror and horror in the 70’s and 80’s movies including DePalma’s movies.

There is a conclusion worthy of Gothic terror at a Staten Island hospital. And also, by the way, DePalma’s use of New York City as an evil presence is well done in his breakout movie. It got him noticed for projects like “Carrie”, “The Untouchables” and “Phantom of the Paradise”, that I grew up watching on late night TV.

There are split screens in the movie making, distorted lenses, a sense that the world is unreal and terror filled, that DePalma is technically great at. In the first sequence, everything is made to look like a cheap TV game show and DePalma does it well. He is juggling many balls in the air and the movie works. There is comedy in the early dark comedies such as “Phantom” and the later underrated last comedy he did, “Home Movies” based on his family history.

The movies that DePalma made are never dull. If you don’t care for the melodramatic stories, there is still the rich camera work and sense of unease. He gave that up around the time of epic movies such as “The Untouchables” and “Bonfire of the Vanities”. He’s too melodramatic and a showman to do serious dramatic movies and he returned to his thrillers and action films soon after.

He’s the most underrated of the baby boomer directors who are still with us. I wish him well and I grew up on his movies. May he make several more. If he does copy older movies still, he’s very good at it and you don’t mind the flim flam.

“Sisters” was his first real Hollywood production after being fired from another movie. It got him work in the business for years. I can’t think of a really dull movie he did - my hats off to him.