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Fatal Attraction

Movie added on: December 13, 2008

Fatal Attraction is a 1987 thriller about a married man who has a weekend affair with a woman who refuses to allow it to end and who becomes obsessed with him. It stars Michael Douglas, Glenn Close and Anne Archer. It was directed by Adrian Lyne. The film was adapted by James Dearden and Nicholas Meyer from an earlier short film by Dearden for British TV entitled Diversion. The movie closely follows the plot of Play Misty For Me (1970).

Director :Adrian Lyne
Release Date :18 September 1987
Genre rama | Thriller
Tagline :On the other side of drinks, dinner and a one night stand, lies a terrifying love story.
Runtime :119 min

Cast

Michael Douglas : Dan Gallagher
Glenn Close : Alex Forrest
Anne Archer : Beth Gallagher
Ellen Hamilton Latzen : Ellen Gallagher
Stuart Pankin : Jimmy

Dan Gallagher is a successful, happily married New York attorney living in Manhattan when he meets Alex Forrest, an editor from a publishing company, through business. While his wife and his daughter are out of town for the weekend, Dan has a brief affair with Alex. What Dan thought would be a simple fling turns into a dangerous sequence of events when Alex begins to cling to him obsessively.

Alex Forrest’s mental instability initially surfaces when she attempts suicide after Dan explains to her that he must go home and get on with his life. Dan thinks the affair is forgotten, but Alex begins to show up at various places to see him. She is waiting for him at his office one day to apologize and invite him to the opera Madame Butterfly with her, but he turns her down. She then begins to call Dan’s office until he tells his secretary he will no longer take her calls. Alex then starts calling Dan’s home at all hours and then informs Dan that she is pregnant and planning to keep the baby. Although Dan wants nothing to do with her, she argues that he must take responsibility. Alex then shows up at Dan’s apartment (which is for sale) and meets his wife, Beth, feigning interest as a buyer. Later that night, he goes to her apartment to confront her about her actions. In response, she replies, “Well, what am I supposed to do? You won’t answer my calls, you change your number, I’m not going to be ignored, Dan!”

Dan moves his family to the New York village of Bedford (which was actually filmed in Mount Kisco). However, this doesn’t deter Alex, who continues to fervently stalk him. She has a voice recording delivered to Dan and follows him home one night to spy on him, his wife Beth, and their daughter Ellen from the bushes in his yard; the sight of their family life literally makes her sick to her stomach. Alex’s obsession, which grows stronger as time goes on, eventually turns into madness. Dan approaches the local police to apply for a restraining order against Alex (lying that it is “for a client”), to which a police lieutenant claims that he cannot violate Alex’s rights without cause and that the adulterer has to own up to his free love attitude (arguably one of the few men to confront Dan about “what goes around comes around”).Read more

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Fatal Attraction Trivia

The original ending had Alex committing suicide while dressed in white, and Dan being arrested for her murder. It was changed when preview audiences felt that Alex was not brought to justice. This ending still appears in the Japanese release. The ending was reshot in the worship room of the Unitarian church in Mt. Kisco, NY.
Barbara Hershey, Miranda Richardson and Debra Winger all turned down the role of Alex.
Based on a short film made for British TV which James Dearden wrote and directed.
Glenn Close graduated from Rosemary Hall, an all-girls boarding school, the same year Michael Douglas graduated from the Choate School, an all-boys boarding school. The schools later combined to form Choate Rosemary Hall, which is co-ed.
Horror director, John Carpenter, was originally offered the chance to direct. He eventually declined because he felt the premise was too similar to _Play Misty For Me (1971)_.
The TV show that Ellen Hamilton Latzen is watching at the beginning of the movie is “You Can’t Do That on Television” (1979).
Glenn Close still has the knife she used in the movie hanging in her kitchen.
The film’s working titles were “Affairs of the Heart”, and “Lethal Attraction”.
Brian De Palma was originally slated to direct but he backed out because he feared that the story was too similar to Play Misty for Me (1971). De Palma also felt that Michael Douglas was not a good leading man. De Palma has since admitted he was wrong about Douglas.
Maurice Jarre’s score doesn’t kick in until a half-hour into the film.
More than 20 directors passed on directing the movie.
When Glenn Close finally secured the part of Alex Forrest, one of the first things she did was to take the script to two different psychiatrists to ask them: “Is this behavior possible and if it is, why?”

Fatal Attraction Mistakes

One scene has Glenn Close in bed shot from profile, and the sheet in down exposing her breasts. The film cuts to a frontal shot and the sheet is up around her neck. When it cuts back to profile, the sheet is down again.
The dialogue that Michael Douglas hears Glenn Close saying when he walks into his apartment to find Glenn Close talking to his wife is the exact same thing that she says just before she leaves when Ann Archer gives her their phone number.
In the beginning, Michael Douglas tells Glenn Close that he has a 6 year old daughter. Later in the movie when Douglas is talking to his wife on the phone about the daughter missing school, she says “She’s 5 years old, what is she gonna miss, Trigonometry?”
The boom mic is visible in the top corner of the Volvo’s windshield, when Michael Douglas waves goodbye to his daughter on the street at the beginning.
After Dan visits his wife in the hospital, he goes to Alex’s apartment. In the scene where he’s chasing Alex and crashes into the glass door, shattering it, look closely at his face and you’ll see it’s not Michael Douglas but a stunt double. A few seconds later when they are struggling in the kitchen, look again and you’ll see the same stunt double.
Glenn Close changes her dress from the shot where she gets up out of the tub to the next shot where she is shot. The bloodstains on the collar are different.
Near the end of the film when the wife is running a bath, Michael Douglas is down stairs making tea. As he walks in and out of the living room, in the background there is a curtain that is drawn open but there is no window.
Iron Couple Award: Not necessarily a mistake, but Michael Douglas and Glenn Close start their frenzied lovemaking in the kitchen as a clock reads 4:45, and they’re still going at it when the clock later reads 6:15.
At the end of the film during the final confrontation when Michael Douglas first forces Glenn Close into the bath tub only her ankles are over the edge of the tub however, in the very next shot her knees are dangling over the edge.
In the last portion of the film, the background shows autumn-leafed trees when Anne Archer drives downtown. When the scene switches to the house, all the trees are lush and green in the yard.

Fatal Attraction Quotes

Dan Gallagher: You’re so sad. You know that, Alex? Lonely and very sad.
Alex Forrest: Don’t you ever pity me, you smug bastard.
Dan Gallagher: I’ll pity you… I’ll pity you. I’ll pity you because you’re sick.
Alex Forrest: Why? Because I won’t allow you treat me like some slut you can just bang a couple of times and throw in the garbage?
Telephone Operator: Operator. May I help you?
Alex Forrest: Operator, I’ve been trying to get 555-8129. 212? The recording says its been disconnected.
Telephone Operator: Just a moment please.
[pause]
Telephone Operator: I’m sorry, the number’s been changed to an unlisted number.
Alex Forrest: Operator, this is a real emergency please. You need to give me that number.
Telephone Operator: I’m sorry. We’re not allowed to give out that information.
Alex Forrest: Well *fuck you*!
Telephone Operator: My place or yours?
[Alex slams phone]
Alex Forrest: You must have to be discreet.
Dan Gallagher: Oh, god yeah.
Alex Forrest: Are you?
Dan Gallagher: Am I what?
Alex Forrest: Discreet?
Dan Gallagher: Yes, I’m discreet.
Alex Forrest: Me, too.
Alex Forrest: You’re here with a strange girl being a naughty boy.
Dan Gallagher: I don’t think having dinner with anybody’s a crime.
Doctor: Whatever resentment she’s feeling, she probably got it out of her system.
Dan Gallagher: What if she didn’t get it out of her system? What then?