Deadly Illusion
Director: Larry Cohen / William Tannen
Year:
1987
Rating: 4.0
"Spread your legs baby."
Billy Dee Williams as Hamberger says to
a lady. And of course she does because he is Billy Dee Williams and no woman
ever says no to him. In this case though, it was to shoot a man holding her
with a gun to her head. Hamberger is a private dick and when some people
say his name, it sounds like Hammer, who is clearly his role model. Even
his secretary squeeze is Velda beautiful, the wonderful Vanity. Directed
by Larry Cohen, at least till he got booted out, it is a real ungainly mess
that is nearly incoherent and seems lost by the end. An attempt at noir that
would make Bogart blush. Some decent NYC locations that include a shootout
at Shea Stadium, home of the Mets. When he kills some guy at home plate,
like any movie P.I. he has to crack "He's out".
Hamberger is approached by a stranger to
kill his wife. $100,000. But Vanity would probably disapprove, so instead
he goes to the wife and tells her to leave town. But not before seducing
him. Why? Because he is Billy Dee Williams. This being noir, sure enough
the wife is found dead and his fingerprints are all over. Her. But then a
noir twist that everyone saw coming; the dead woman is not the same woman
and the husband is not the man who hired him. We knew it couldn't be the
same woman because she is played by Morgan Fairchild and you are not going
to kill Fairchild off that early in the movie. People start getting killed;
sometimes by Hamberger, sometimes by others and I have no idea why.
