Whodunnit set in the chic world of fashion

Press, 23 April 1979, Page 13

Whodunnit set in the chic world of fashion

“If thine eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: it is better to enter into life with one eye, rather than having two eyes to be cast into hell fire.”— Matthew 18.9

I Although “Eyes of Laura Mars” (Avon) makes no I biblical allusions, this quopation sums up very well the ' plot of this whodunnit 1 thriller set in New York’s •trendy fashion world. ■ But the film also seems to j spend more lime exploring jthe intricacies and intrigues jof the fashion world than it spends on exploring the inner world of a homocidal psychopath.

The heroine is Laura Mars (Faye Dunaway), a

'chic photographer who likes working in a peculiar sadoimasochistic style. Unfortunately. many of the bizarre | scenes from her photographs I turn out to be almost I replicas of future murders, i (The length of the stocki ing suspenders worn by : some of the near-naked 1 models in these pictures I also makes one wonder 'whether girls’ legs are getting longer or whether black stockings are starting to I shrink). I That is not Miss Mars’s: |only problem. She begins to] • actually “see” or “relive”) | some of these murders] i through a fuzzy, glycerine- ■ i covered lens.

The killer is not seen—only the murder, in which invariably an ice pick is .stabbed in one of the vic-

tint's eyes, and that person then bounces down a staircase. The allusion to eyes does not stop there. For. in the final showdown between Laura and the killer in her apartment, he uses his pick

to stab out a reflection of his own eye in a mirror, instead of stabbing the heroine. I hope this has not given away the plot. For Laura has so many friends, conmen, a former husband and even a detective-lover around her that the question of whodunnit can keep the audience intrigued until very near the end—how early you can pick the villain may depend on how awake you were when you entered the cinema. Faye Dunaway, who is on i screen most of the time, •handles the main role vcrc well in a manner reminiscent of her Academy Award winning part in "Network" and in "Three Days of the I Condor.”

The main male role of the detective is plaved hx lomnn Lee Jones, ‘last seen in “The Betsy.” Jones still 'cents to think that he looks like a good looking, young Charles Bronson and acts like • it. Brad Dount. ssh<> will be remembered fot his excellent performance in "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Vest’’ a> the stuttering voting fellow who did himself in. in 'his film as a chauffeur who still seems crazy as the other inmates of the Cuckoo’s Nest. The film is often relieved bx the trendy, even kinky fashion photography, which proves a pleasant diversion from the murders.