By Melissa Antoinette Garza
EYES OF LAURA MARS (1978) stars Tommy Lee Jones, Faye Dunaway and the fabulously sexy Brad Dourif. The movie has been a favorite of mine forever. Dunaway was one of my role models growing up. I just adored her body of work. At a very young age, if I was surfing thru the channels and came across her face I would stop. Regardless of the film, I knew it would be great. She’s just marvelous.
The film opens with controversial photographer Laura Mars (Faye Dunaway) attending her gallery show. Before entering, journalist Sheila Weissman (Marilyn Meyers) get her panties in a bunch and essentially accuses Mars of demeaning women. Of course, she does it in question form.
Mars’s work is stylized violence and many of them have homoerotic themes or intense imagery. She’s an artist. Sheila and company hound her relentlessly. God, how I hate the Sheilas of this world. They always hurt the cause! Mars and her work is feminism in its truest form. Sheila is just a pious wench trying to do two awful things: Infringe on Mars’s artistic ability and (most importantly) stop me from enjoying near-naked ladies rolling around with one another. Fuck you, Sheila!
Laura’s agent/manager Donald Phelps (Rene Auberjonois) helps get her away from the idiot reporters and onto her welcoming fans and friends. Still, even there she’s faced with criticism though she takes it well. She meets Officer John Neville (Tommy Lee Jones) a cute gent with long hair. Sadly, he’s not into the work and not realizing he’s speaking with Laura says the artist must be a frustrated voyeur.
Not so harsh, Johnny! Words matter.
Unlike myself, Laura enjoys his fresh honesty. He’s not a stuffy, art critic and so she takes his words for the earnest opinion that it is. She knows who she is and doesn’t let his thoughts define her. I like this scene for a variety of reasons. Laura believes she is in complete control. She has full knowledge of who she is and knows enough about him. I can see why Laura would be turned on by John, but personally he’s not my type.
I’m more into her kind, street ex-convict driver Tommy Ludlow (Brad Dourif). I want to take a ride in his car. I don’t care what he did in his past! He’s sweet and practically rehabilitated.
If things weren’t bad enough with the nosy, self-righteous reporters, someone gets violently murdered at the show! When Donald tells Laura that the victim’s eye was gouged, she freaks out because she saw it. She had a psychic vision of the death.
She debates on whether to stop shooting, but the art gallery owner and Laura’s friend Elaine (Rose Gregorio) insists she continue her work. Elaine has a rocky relationship with her alcoholic boyfriend Michael (Raul Julia) who is also Laura’s ex-husband. He gets roused telling Elaine how sexy Laura is and when Elaine gets upset with him for talking that way, he turns on the charm. He’s portrayed by Raul Julia so – it works.
The next shoot has a few women fighting in lingerie around cars on fire and broken fire hydrants. Things are going well until Laura has a vision of Elaine being killed. She experiences it from the murderer’s perspective and doesn’t see the identity, but still she rushes to her friend’s home. Sadly, she’s too late as the deaths happen in real-time.
The police bring everyone in for questioning. Officer Neville is on the case and interviews Laura. She takes the opportunity to briefly defend her work. He brings over an art-book with her on the cover. It that has her eye gouged out. She admits to having seen the same book in a nightmare she had. John shows pictures of actual murder scenes which are identical in nature to photographs she took afterward thus explaining his initial response at the gala.
She explains that she started having the murderous instincts within her work a few years prior and just implemented them, essentially as a internal muse.
Meanwhile, Tommy and Donald are being simultaneously interviewed by different officers trying to weed thru the suspects. Tommy owns a knife and has a record that raises a few eyebrows. Donald is nervous and suspiciously pointing fingers at others.
Michael runs to Laura and tries to get back with her. He’s not that broken up about Elaine. She’s not interested in him anymore and gives him a $100 to go away.
As the murders pile up and the visions continue, Neville and Laura become much closer.
The reveal is tremendous and brilliantly done.
I can’t recommend EYES OF LAURA MARS enough. I think sometimes it is lost and gets forgotten as it is mainstream enough to be ignored by cult fans, but cult enough to be shunned by the masses. Upon release, it was popular enough to nearly triple it’s cash, but the critics were rather harsh. Then again the critics are generally harsh on horror movies. They get so wrapped up in specifics that they don’t follow the continuum of the story or see the underlying themes. If they did that for any other genre they’d be out of a job, but many don’t care enough about horror to look under the surface.
Robert Ebert cited the plot as just another woman in trouble without seeing the bigger picture. Laura Mars isn’t just a woman in trouble. She’s a strong, fierce, successful, smart and independent woman who is faced with unimaginable circumstances. A man would not have fared better in that scenario. She’s dealing not only with a murderer, but with paranormal ESP bullshit too. Unless, the penis has some magic powers than men have been keeping away from me, I don’t believe they are better equipped to handle that situation. I never understood Ebert. He’s the only one who considered it progressive to give women less lead roles. I hope he’s on a cloud chilling now, but the man did irritate me when he was down here raging against horror.
Don’t listen to the naysayers, EYES OF LAURA MARS is a fantastic movie that is suspenseful, entertaining and perfectly cast.
Scared Stiff Rating: 8/10
