The Fury
Here's a film I somehow missed all these years. This despite my lifelong fascination with his work. "The blood mysteries" as a friend once called them during a rather alcoholic evening years ago. There's a lot of blood in this story of a former government agent (Kirk Douglas) whose teenage son, Robin (Andrew Stevens) is kidnapped by an evil gaggle of fellow agents (led by John Cassavettes). Seems that the kid has extra sensory perception, telekinesis, biofeedback sensitivity, and other powers that screenwriter John Farris (adapting his own novel) throws into the stew. Cassevettes and co. see all manner of nefarious activity that can be harnessed through such a powerful weapon. By controlling Robin, "We'll have something even the Soviets don't" he cries.
Meanwhile, we also meet another psychic teen, Gillian Bellaver (a very young looking Amy Irving). Her boarding school peers think she's weird, especially after she uses her brainwaves to make model trains fly off their tracks and causes a particularly unpleasant classmmate a gushing nosebleed. Eventually, Gillian's mother reluctantly allows her to attend an exclusive institute for the psychically gifted, or something. Life is good: a caring staff (Charles Durning et al.), appropriate mental challenges, likeminded classmmates, and hot fudge sundaes as reward. Durning (Dr. Jim McKeever) is a warm, gentle academic who expounds on things metaphysical and extrasensory, all sounding like the same sort of nonsensical explanations we hear in a host of B-movie horror/sci-fi, and other DePalma movies for that matter.
But then one day, Gillian receives terrifying visions of a boy in trouble. Robin. Apparently, he had been at the very same Institute once, and things did not go well, to put it mildly. Gillian receives her premonitions after Dr. McKeever innocently grabs her hand on a staircase. By the end of the disturbing vision, the doctor's hand is spewing the red stuff. Is there a connection between Robin and Gillian that goes deeper than their merely having similiar "talents"? I won't reveal any more of the serpentine plot here.
THE FURY is textbook mid-period DePalma. His unabashed homages to Hitch fill every frame of this movie, with obvious nods to NORTH BY NORTHWEST and VERTIGO. We're also treated to the already discussed scenes where characters lecture each other on issues of science. I was reminded of all the psychology from DRESSED TO KILL. These lectures are spectacularly silly, by the way. As is the whole movie. I laughed a great deal during THE FURY. Most of the laughs were unintentional, though the director also includes a lengthy comic hot pursuit when Douglas hides from his corrupt cronies, and a funny exchange between two lookout guys. But mainly, the near operatic treatment of the screenplay merits many a guffaw.
We also get those patented DePalma set pieces, bravura sequences where the director really shows his gifts. There are several in THE FURY, but two are worth singling out: a slow-motion confrontation scene where Douglas meets Irving, and a few others who get offed in the ensuing confusion, and a grandly over-the-top final scene, one which I'm sure brought much applause from the original audiences. It is so outrageous that at first I just shook my head. But, such an ultimately foolish movie deserves such a ridiculous ending. I suppose a thoughtful treatise on the powers of the mind could've been filmed, but instead we get THE FURY, and as a rollicking showcase for Brian DePalma's undeniable talents, it is great fun.
Including the last scene. I won't say what happens, but I'll bet David Cronenberg may have been a bit influenced by it for 1981's SCANNERS. Just a thought.
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