Movie Type: Psychological Thriller, Romantic Mystery
Themes: Death of a Partner, Haunted By the Past
Main Cast: Roy Scheider, Janet Margolin, Christopher Walken, Sam Levene, John Glover
Release Year: 1979
Country: US
Run Time: 102 minutes
MPAA Rating: R
Plot
In 1979, Jonathan Demme was still a cutting-edge director and The Last Embrace was his first effort at a completely commercial assignment. Very much in the Hitchcock vein, The Last Embrace is an intense suspense film concerning Harry Hannan (Roy Scheider), a government agent recovering from a catatonic collapse after the murder of his wife. After Harry's recovery, he is back on the job, but he can't figure out whether he is suffering from self-induced paranoia or if his former employers want to kill him. These conflicting feelings are exacerbated when he forms a connection with a nervous graduate student, Ellie Fabian (Janet Margolin), whom he discovers is living in his apartment. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
Review
Jonathan Demme's first big-budget studio production is an interesting precursor to his 1991 success The Silence of the Lambs. The style of the film is deliberately Hitchcockian -- right down to the bell-tower reference to Vertigo (1958) -- but, unlike lesser copy-cats, Demme has a unique viewpoint under the homage. His characters are complex people with realistic moral ambiguities, and Roy Scheider, in a subtle, often non-verbal characterization, gives one of his best performances as the paranoid hero. In contrast to his previous role as the confident protagonist of All That Jazz (1978), Scheider's character shows doubts about himself, what he believes, and what he has done in the past. This was also one of the most memorable roles in Janet Margolin's career. ~ Richard Gilliam, All Movie Guide
James A. Taylor - Art Director, John Nicolella - Associate Producer, Scott Rudin - Casting, Jane Greenwood - Costume Designer, Michael Rauch - First Assistant Director, Jonathan Demme - Director, Barry Malkin - Editor, Miklos Rozsa - Composer (Music Score), Charles Rosen - Production Designer, Tak Fujimoto - Cinematographer, Dan Wigutow - Producer, Michael Taylor - Producer, Les Lazarowitz - Sound/Sound Designer, Tanya Russell - Stunts, David Shaber - Screenwriter, Ted Grossman - Assistant Sound Editor, Murray Teigh Bloom - Book Author
