Reflections on ... The Fan (1981)

Recently watched: The Fan (1981). Tagline: “This is the story of a great star and a fan who went too far …” This notorious woman-in-peril slasher flick proved as popular as scabies when it emerged in 1981 (coincidentally, the same year as Mommie Dearest!), promptly sank into deep obscurity, rarely appears on television and has only intermittently been available on DVD over the years. But for cognoscenti of so-bad-they’re-great cult films, The Fan is exalted as an essential kitsch classic.

In a truly miscalculated career move, veteran Golden Age Hollywood queen Lauren Bacall stars as chain-smoking, mink-clad Sally Ross, a tough but vulnerable, bitter but sexy fifty-something Broadway diva (think Margo Channing or Helen Lawson. Or in fact, Bacall herself!). Just as Sally is embarking on rehearsals for an ambitious new stage musical, she begins being stalked by obsessive fan Douglas Breen (Michael Biehn).  Douglas bombards Sally with letters (today, he’d be trolling her on Instagram or Twitter rather than snail mail). As he grows increasingly frustrated and thwarted, the tone degenerates from lovelorn ("I bought a gorgeous new lucite frame for one of your most famous pictures”) to threatening (“Dear bitch. See how accessible you are? How would you like to be fucked by a meat cleaver?”). Eventually, Douglas turns homicidal: anyone in Sally’s orbit he perceives as an obstacle or a threat gets cut! (If you’re squeamish about spurting geysers of blood, The Fan isn’t the film for you).

To be fair, The Fan isn’t really as terrible as its reputation suggests. It certainly isn’t low-budget schlock. The production values are high. The direction is competent and even occasionally stylish, with effective flourishes of suspense. The milieu (disco-era show business glamour-meets-gruesome violence) isn’t dissimilar to the 1978 thriller The Eyes of Laura Mars starring Faye Dunaway.  It offers vivid glimpses of the lost grungy New York of the late seventies and early eighties. (As ever, I was riveted by a brief sequence in a smoky gay dive bar - with a sullen hustler loitering outside!). There’s (mostly) good acting from the A-list cast, like Maureen Stapleton as Sally’s loyal and wisecracking personal assistant (the Thelma Ritter role) and (DILF alert) James Garner as the ex-husband Sally still holds a torch for. And full credit to the distractingly handsome Biehn for attempting to breathe some credibility and conviction into the psycho fan Douglas.

And Bacall is simply majestic. (Unbelievably, Anne Bancroft and Shirley MacLaine were offered the part before Bacall). Sally is a grand dame, a monstre sacré, a force of nature! “I’m a spoiled brat!” Sally exclaims in a moment of self-awareness. Men leap to light her cigarettes for her. “Get the hell out of here!” she’s apt to roar. (Bacall's growling acidic line delivery recalls another bronchial baritone babe: Bea Arthur). Sally laughs, she cries, she shouts. She drinks the shit out of her drinks, she smokes the shit out of her smokes. Sally also consumes one helluva lot of coffee, which can’t help but evoke the ultra-kitsch High Point instant coffee advertisements Bacall was doing on TV around the same time. (I noticed that at rehearsals Sally sips coffee out of those nasty white Styrofoam disposable cups that are verboten now in this more environmentally aware era). 

Some commentators unchivalrously snipe that 56-year old Bacall looks haggard in The Fan. And certainly, some of her close-ups are unforgiving. But this was decades before Botox and fillers were commonplace, and I’d argue Bacall resembles a gloriously ravaged, puffy-eyed lioness. Her face is “lived-in” in the style more commonly associated with older European actresses (think late-period Jeanne Moreau, Anna Magnani, Simone Signoret or Melina Mercouri) than American ones.

But what elevates The Fan to camp nirvana for gay viewers are the enticing glimpses of Sally’s glitzy musical Never Say Never. (Her previous play was entitled It’s Called Tomorrow). These scenes hit the same sweet spot as Neely O’Hara or Helen Lawson’s musical segments in Valley of the Dolls (1967). (The ballad "Hearts Not Diamonds" is Bacall's equivalent of "I'll Plant My Own Tree”). We get to chart Never Say Never’s progress from early rehearsals (cue dancers in leg warmers doing stretching exercises in front of a mirror and Bacall in a leotard) to glittering gala opening night. But what kind of gruesomely bizarre and inadvertently hilarious production is this meant to be? For one thing, it seems to feature a grand total of two songs. Everyone seems wildly enthusiastic about Sally’s singing, but raspy-voiced Bacall’s sixty cigarettes-a-day croak is grating. (Can I just point out here that Lizabeth Scott could sing?). What we see on the triumphant first night involves shocking pink neon lighting, male and female dancers gyrating Fosse-style on scaffolding, copious dry ice mist – and no perceptible plot. “She’s got no love – in Paris!” a male dancer hisses dramatically. At least we know who to thank. Note the credit “musical staging and choreography by Arlene Philips”. Phillips (formerly of British dance troupe Hot Gossip, much later a judge on TV’s Strictly Come Dancing) choreographed the disastrous Village People disco movie Can’t Stop the Music the year before, so she’s partly responsible for not one but two kitsch masterpieces! After the infamous debacle of Can’t Stop the Music, whose bright idea was it to hire Phillips again so soon? Whoever it was, I could kiss them!

Further reading:

Read some funny and perceptive analyses of The Fan here, here and here. 

There’s something perversely fascinating about seeing a classy, prestigious performer like Bacall wind up in an exploitation shocker like The Fan. When interviewed for a 1981 People magazine cover story supposedly to promote the movie, the leading lady was typically blunt: “The Fan is much more graphic and violent than when I read the script. The movie I wanted to make had more to do with what happens to the life of the woman and less blood and gore.” The producers must have been thrilled! Bacall’s appearance in The Fan is comparable to Lyle Waggoner in Love Me Deadly (1972) and Leslie Uggams in Poor Pretty Eddie (1975). 

My reflections on what I consider Bacall's most underrated performance in Young Man with a Horn (1950).