Movie Type: Psychological Thriller, Erotic Thriller
Themes: Serial Killers, Love Triangles, Crumbling Marriages
Main Cast: David Keith, Cathy Moriarty, Art Evans, Alan Rosenberg, Alberta Watson
Release Year: 1987
Country: UK
Run Time: 111 minutes
MPAA Rating: R
Plot
A stylish take on the woman in jeopardy and mad killer genres, White of the Eye poses the question, What would you do if you suspected your loving husband to be a serial killer? Arizonan Paul White (David Keith) is an expert at installing high-end stereo systems in the homes of wealthy citizens. He has been married to Joan (Cathy Moriarty) for ten years, having seduced her away from a violent criminal, Mike DeSantos (Alan Rosenberg). A series of brutal murders of well-to-do women has citizens of Paul and Joan's town on edge. When evidence at the scene of the second murder points to Paul, Joan tries to fend off the suspicions of police detective Charles Mendoza (Art J. Evans), even as she begins to see signs of violence in her husband that confirm the accusation. Director Donald Cammell, who co-wrote the script with his wife China, offers a fragmented narrative characterized by quick cutting; subjective, handheld camera work; and optical tricks that suggest the unraveling of Paul's mind. ~ Tom Wiener, All Movie Guide
Review
Donald Cammell's best realized solo project is -- like his overall best film, Performance, co-directed with Nicolas Roeg -- a two-character study about madness that falls just short of allowing style to triumph over substance. Cammell takes the simple premise of the loving husband and father harboring a murderous rage against women and explodes it with a arsenal of technical wizardry. He's intent on providing visuals that reflect how dislocated the two main characters are: Paul White, by his psychosis, and his wife, Joan, by the undoing of ten years of marriage to a man she realizes she never really knew. The setting, in the Arizona desert, allows Cammell to offer a desolate landscape for his story of increasingly isolated characters, plus the overlay of Apache mysticism that fuels Paul's maniacal view of the world. Unlike the morally ambiguous world of Performance, White of the Eye offers a more conventional dynamic between the two leads. Joan realizes her worst fear, that she has escaped one bad relationship (her long-ago lover, Mike, who conveniently shows up to provide a red herring) for someone even more demented. David Keith, a reliable character actor, is sturdy as Paul, and Cathy Moriarty, confirms the promise of her stunning debut in Raging Bull with a shaded performance that suggests both vulnerability and reserves of emotional strength. ~ Tom Wiener, All Movie Guide
Michael Greene - Phil Ross; Marc Hayashi - Stu; William G. Schilling - Harold Gideon; David Chow - Fred Hoy; Danielle Smith - Danielle White; China Cammell - Ruby Hoy; Danko Gurovich - Arnold White; Mimi Lieber - Liza Manchester; Pamela Seamon - Caryanne; Bob Zache - Lucas Herman
Credit
Sue Baden-Powell - Associate Producer, Pamela Rack - Casting, Cassian Elwes - Co-producer, Brad Wyman - Co-producer, Merril Green - Costume Designer, Andrew Z. Davis - First Assistant Director, Donald Cammell - Director, Terry Rawlings - Editor, Rick Fenn - Composer (Music Score), George Fenton - Composer (Music Score), Nick Mason - Composer (Music Score), George Fenton - Musical Direction/Supervision, Hank Williams, Jr. - Songwriter, Errol Brown - Songwriter, Steve Cropper - Songwriter, Alan Jackson, Jr. - Songwriter, Booker T. Jones - Songwriter, George Richie - Songwriter, Lewis Steenberg - Songwriter, Carmel Taylor - Songwriter, Moras Wilson - Songwriter, Sharon Ilson Reed - Makeup, Jeanne Van Phue - Makeup, Philip Thomas - Production Designer, Consolidated Color - Cinematographer, Larry McConkey - Cinematographer, Alan Jones - Cinematographer, Sue Baden-Powell - Production Manager, Richard Rutowski - Set Designer, Thomas Ford - Special Effects, Dan Bradley - Stunts, Dan Bradley - Stunts Coordinator, China Cammell - Screenwriter, Donald Cammell - Screenwriter, Ruggiero Leoncavallo - Featured Music, Gustav Mahler - Featured Music, Margaret Tracy - Book Author
White Of The Eye is a 1987 British thriller film directed by Donald Cammell. It was adapted in film by Donald Cammell and his wife China Kong from the novel Mrs. White, written by Andrew and Laurence Klavan.
Plot summary
A series of murders of young women bear destinctive signatures of a suspected serial killer. Clues lead Detective Charles Mendoza to visit Paul White, a sound expert instaling hi-fi systems in wealthy people's homes. He is married to Joan, whom he has seduced away from Mike DeSantos ten years before. Joan is questioned by Mendoza, but does not believe his insinuations that her husband is somehow involved in the murders.
Various flashbacks show Joan's previous relationship to Mike and later explain how it came to be that he abandoned her. The couple met Paul and befriended him. At Paul's suggestion, he and Mike go on a deer hunting trip together. Paul shoots a deer and brutally mutilates it, demonstrating his sick fascination with killing. This is apparently intended to scare Mike off, which it does. He leaves Joan and shows up later in the film.
By now Joan is suspicious of Paul and looks into a crawl space under the house, discovering preserved body parts of Paul's victims wrapped in paper. Paul confronts Joand tries to explain his motivations for killing. Mike returns and agrees to meet Joan and Paul at an abandoned quarry. While pontificating about his philosophies of life and death, Paul reveals an explosive vest and detonator just as Mike opens fire on him with a machine gun and Joan dives into the lake in the quarry. Paul and Mike both die instantly, leaving Joan the sole survivor.
Based on the 1983 novel 'Mrs White' by Margaret Tracy (pseudonym of the brothers Andrew and Lawrence Klavan) part of the plot is a remake of Russ Meyer's Supervixens and also has some visual quotes from Meyer's Up!.
