Just what I expected

Admirable film.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Blistering performances.

Clint Eastwood's first directorial effort is a terrible movie. I am frankly amazed that other reviewers have given this as high a rating on IMBD as it currently has. The only reason to watch it is if you have a historical interest in how Eastwood developed as a director over the following 45 years. Evidently, he started from the bottom. The only suspense is who will be worse: Eastwood the director or Eastwood the actor. It is impossible to discern any difference in the emotional state of "David," Eastwood's character, between when he is in the throes of romantic love versus when he should be in terror that he could be stabbed at any moment. However, his absence of acting may still leave him better off than the consistent over-acting of his female co-stars, especially Jessica Walter, who manages to mangle what is actually a pretty good script into something entirely unbelievable. While a romantic montage with "David" and his girlfriend is probably the most cringe-worthy sequence, there is really no scene in Eastwood's debut that isn't riddled with cinematic cliches. The story is, of course, utterly predictable. If you want a cautionary tale of bad things that can happen to a man due to an ill-considered affair, stick with "Fatal Attraction." Decades later, Eastwood will become a far better director than the ham-handed Lyne, but at this point in his career, Eastwood was strictly a hack.

I have seen this several times over the years and always loved it. Watching it again now, I still enjoyed it but found that the first half was beginning to drag with a mounting irritation in the stalker and even in Eastwood's less than vigorous manner of dealing with the situation. Maybe its because I watched Dirty Harry only yesterday and felt that that was the way to sort it out! The romantic and jazz festival interludes have been criticised but while they are not very good, particularly the festival footage, they do make that break between the earlier increasing obsessional behaviour situation and the final De Palma style crazy and scary slasher mode. Eastwood does well in his directorial debut but is helped enormously by good storyline and script as well, I'm sure as having Don Seigel on hand if needed and doing a great job as bar tender in the meantime.

"Play Misty for Me" could have been a good thriller but is let down by the script, acting and direction.Firstly, the script. Evelyn looms out of nowhere with no back story. Does she have a job or home? Was she always a psycho? What draws her to Dave? With none of these questions answered, she is more like a slasher film monster with supernatural abilities e.g. following Dave as if he had a GPS tracker on him, convincing Tobie to be her flat mate, killing a police detective with a pair of scissors, etc.Secondly, the acting. Jessica Walter is good. Clint is OK but squints all the time as if he is facing down Lee Van Cleef in a Spaghetti Western. The rest of the cast range from boring (Donna Mills as Tobie) to over-the-top (James McEachin as Al).Finally, the direction. Clint Eastwood had to start somewhere I suppose but this is self-indulgent and badly paced. Clint likes Carmel so we get panoramas of sea cliffs and pine forests. Clint likes jazz so we get home movies of the Monterey Jazz Festival. Clint likes sex so he gets naked in a waterfall.I seem to be one of the few people who has not seen "Fatal Attraction" so I will not compare the two films. But I have seen movies with suspense and "Play Misty for Me" has very little of that.

The forerunner to both Fatal Attraction and Misery, Clint Eastwood thriller Play Misty For Me marks a brief change in direction for the star, who puts away his six-shooter to play a victim for a change. Eastwood is Dave, a smooth-talking radio DJ who makes the mistake of having a fling with obsessed fan Evelyn Draper (Jessica Walter). But when Dave wants to call it quits with the feisty fruit-loop, preferring to rekindle his relationship with much saner old flame Tobie (Donna Mills), crazy Evelyn dials the lunacy up to eleven.Eastwood's directorial debut, Play Misty For Me shows the actor to be so much more than a squint, some stubble and a grimace: his first feature film at the helm is a very accomplished thriller that delivers solid storytelling, a superb villainess (Walter is truly frightening in a performance that rivals those of Glenn Close and Kathy Bates in the aforementioned classics), some terrific suspense, and even a spot of rather nasty violence, with a frenzied knife attack on Dave's house cleaner every bit as cringe-worthy as the hobbling scene in Misery.Admittedly, the film does lose some momentum in the second act, where Clint gets a little self-indulgent, with a romantic montage scene that plays out to Roberta Flack's 'The First Time I Ever I Saw Your Face' in its entirety (great song, mind you), followed by some musical footage from the Monterey Jazz Festival. Things do pick up, however, for a rousing finalé that sees Evelyn in full on whack-job mode, threatening Tobie and getting super stabby with Dave before he finally clobbers the bitch in the chops, sending her plummeting through a window, over a cliff, and into the sea.