Body Double
1984 film directed by Brian De Palma
Body Double is a 1984 American neo-noir erotic thriller film directed, co-written, and produced by Brian De Palma, and starring Craig Wasson, Gregg Henry, Melanie Griffith, and Deborah Shelton. The film is a direct homage to the 1950s films of Alfred Hitchcock, specifically Rear Window, Vertigo, and Dial M for Murder, taking plot lines and themes (such as voyeurism, panic attacks, and obsession) from the first two.
At the time of its release, the film was a commercial failure, earning $8.8 million at the box office against a production budget of $10 million, as well as mixed reviews, though Griffith's performance earned praise and earned her a nomination for the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress – Motion Picture. Subsequently, the film received positive appraisal from cinema fans and is now considered to be a cult film.
Plot
In Los Angeles, struggling actor Jake Scully has recently lost his role as a vampire in a low-budget horror film after his claustrophobia thwarts shooting. Upon returning home to discover his girlfriend Carol cheating on him, Scully splits up with her and is left homeless. At a method acting class, where he meets Sam Bouchard, Scully reveals his fears and the childhood cause of his claustrophobia. They go to a bar where Scully is offered a place to stay; Sam's rich friend Alan has gone on a trip to Europe and needs a house-sitter for his ultra-modern home in the Hollywood Hills.
While touring the house with Scully, Sam is especially enthusiastic about showing him one feature: a telescope, and through it a female neighbor, Gloria Revelle, who erotically dances at a specific time each night. Scully voyeuristically watches Gloria until he sees her being abused by a man she appears to know.
“Body Double” enters the record as 1984 film directed by Brian De Palma. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Body, Double and film can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Reception evidence should be dated and situated: later canonical status may differ sharply from the work’s initial circulation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 8, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1197501. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 2 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1984.
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This entry incorporates text from “Body Double” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.