ON THIS DAY IN HORROR - March 27th
"SISTERS" released in 1973
A journalist witnesses a brutal murder in a neighboring apartment, but nobody believes her that the crime took place; except for a private detective who helps her try to solve the grisly mystery, in Brian De Palma's debut thriller, Sisters!
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Grace Collier (Jennifer Salt), a columnist with the Staten Island Panorama, is beginning to feel dissatisfied with her work, primarily being assigned to work on fluff pieces, but on occasion is allowed to do hard hitting stories (which she prefers). From her apartment window one morning, she sees what she is certain is the stabbing murder of a black man by a white woman in an apartment across the way; the black man, seeing her, who tried to scrawl the word "help" in his own blood on the window. Reporting what she saw to the police, Grace gets little help from them, with who she has a bad relationship if only because of previous stories she has written on police brutality and racism. When the police and Grace arrive at the apartment in question, they find no dead body, no blood, and no woman matching who Grace saw commit the murder. All they find is the tenant, Danielle Breton (Margot Kidder), a young French-Canadian model/actress, who is visited by her soon to be ex-husband, Emil Breton (William Finley). However, what Grace saw truly did happen, the dead man being Phillip Woode (Lisle Wilson), a man Danielle just met on her latest job (Woode was the "victim" of a Candid Camera-style television prank-show) and the murderess being Danielle's twin sister, Dominique Blanchion (Kidder), who is possessive of her sister. Emil helped Danielle cover up the murder. Grace, with the help of a private investigator named Joseph Larch (Charles Durning), tries to find out what is going on, including where the dead body is, which Grace believes they could not have moved out of the apartment between the time she saw the murder and when she and the police initially arrived on the scene. If Grace and Larch find out the truth, they will learn of an unusual relationship between Danielle, Dominique and Emil, one with strong psychological overtones based on the scar Danielle has on her right hip. And even if Grace and Larch discover the truth, they may not survive what Emil in particular is willing to hide at any cost to protect Danielle!
TRIVIA: During an interview, Jennifer Salt was questioned about the meaning of the film's strange, open-ended conclusion. Salt admitted that she did not understand the meaning of the film's bizarre conclusion either!
Top and Above: Journalist Grace Collier (Jennifer Salt) joins forces with private investigator Joseph Larch (Charles Durning) to solve a murder Grace witnessed from her window.
Brian De Palma was inspired to make the film after he read an article about a set of Soviet Union Siamese twins, Masha and Dasha Krivoshlyapova, who were successfully separated after an operation. De Palma said he was haunted by a photograph of the twins in which one looked cheerful and healthy, while the other looked surly and disturbed, especially as the article went on to include issues about the twins' psychological problems after their separation. Co-written with Louisa Rose, Sisters was originally set up by producer Ray Stark as a starring vehicle for actress Raquel Welch. However, De Palma had Jennifer Salt in mind for the leading role of journalist Grace Collier (Salt had previously starred in De Palma's debut feature film, Murder a la Mod, as well as collaborating again in The Wedding Party and Hi, Mom!). Margot Kidder was then cast in the dual roles of Danielle Breton/Dominique Blanchion. Interestingly, at that time, Salt and Kidder were roommates in Southern California, when De Palma let the actresses know they had gotten the roles in Sisters in a unique way; at Christmas, Kidder and Salt opened separate boxes under their Christmas tree and each one contained the script to this film - a special "gift" from De Palma.
William Finley, another frequent collaborator of De Palma's, was also cast as Danielle/Dominique's estranged husband, Emil Breton, with legendary character-actor Charles Durning cast in one of his earliest roles as private detective, Joseph Larch. Appearing in one of his first supporting roles, Lisle Wilson was cast as murder victim, Phillip Woode (Wilson would later star as Leonard Taylor on the ABC sitcom That's My Mama, as well as in The Incredible Melting Man in 1977). Salt's real-life mother, Mary Davenport, was also cast as Mrs. Peyson Collier, allowing the two actresses to now portray mother and daughter on screen.
Following a month of rehearsals, Sisters was shot over a 8-week schedule on location on Staten Island, New York. Heavily influenced by the films of Alfred Hitchcock (the tracking shot of Salt walking up to the experimental hospital was particularly influenced by the tracking shot of Martin Balsam walking up to the Bates house in Psycho), De Palma also employed unusual point of view shots and split screen effects to show two events happening simultaneously (De Palma also shot the dream sequences in 16mm to give it a more gritty atmospheric appearance). De Palma later stated he doesn't remember where he got the idea for using the split screen, but "it's a kind of meditative form. You can go very slowly with it, because there's a lot to look at. People are making juxtapositions in their mind. And you can have all this exposition mumbo jumbo on one side". However, one elaborate tracking shot had to be deleted from the film; De Palma said the search scene was originally "a Max Ophüls-type tracking shot about 6 minutes long, and while they are searching through the apartment the camera keeps coming back to the couch and the spot is getting bigger and bigger and bigger," De Palma stated. "I shot it, but because the camera could only get down so low and still go up high enough to shoot the rest of the scene we couldn't get down to the bottom of the couch and when we saw the rushes it looked ridiculous because it looked like the guy was bleeding up through the arm of the couch. So I had to throw out the whole tracking shot, and I was forced to use close-ups and television-type coverage."
William Finley, another frequent collaborator of De Palma's, was also cast as Danielle/Dominique's estranged husband, Emil Breton, with legendary character-actor Charles Durning cast in one of his earliest roles as private detective, Joseph Larch. Appearing in one of his first supporting roles, Lisle Wilson was cast as murder victim, Phillip Woode (Wilson would later star as Leonard Taylor on the ABC sitcom That's My Mama, as well as in The Incredible Melting Man in 1977). Salt's real-life mother, Mary Davenport, was also cast as Mrs. Peyson Collier, allowing the two actresses to now portray mother and daughter on screen.
Following a month of rehearsals, Sisters was shot over a 8-week schedule on location on Staten Island, New York. Heavily influenced by the films of Alfred Hitchcock (the tracking shot of Salt walking up to the experimental hospital was particularly influenced by the tracking shot of Martin Balsam walking up to the Bates house in Psycho), De Palma also employed unusual point of view shots and split screen effects to show two events happening simultaneously (De Palma also shot the dream sequences in 16mm to give it a more gritty atmospheric appearance). De Palma later stated he doesn't remember where he got the idea for using the split screen, but "it's a kind of meditative form. You can go very slowly with it, because there's a lot to look at. People are making juxtapositions in their mind. And you can have all this exposition mumbo jumbo on one side". However, one elaborate tracking shot had to be deleted from the film; De Palma said the search scene was originally "a Max Ophüls-type tracking shot about 6 minutes long, and while they are searching through the apartment the camera keeps coming back to the couch and the spot is getting bigger and bigger and bigger," De Palma stated. "I shot it, but because the camera could only get down so low and still go up high enough to shoot the rest of the scene we couldn't get down to the bottom of the couch and when we saw the rushes it looked ridiculous because it looked like the guy was bleeding up through the arm of the couch. So I had to throw out the whole tracking shot, and I was forced to use close-ups and television-type coverage."
TRIVIA: The film was remade in 2006 under the same title, with Lou Doillon, Stephen Rea, and Chloë Sevigny in the leading roles.
Top and Above: Aspiring actress Danielle Breton (Margot Kidder) keeps a dark secret - as a child she was once a conjoined twin with her murderous sister, Dominique (Kidder).
In keeping with the Hitchcockian-influence, De Palma persuaded Hitchcock's semi-retired composer, Bernard Herrmann (Psycho, North by Northwest, The Man Who Knew Too Much, and Vertigo), to write the score. To indicate the musical effects he wanted, De Palma put together an edit of his film that was dubbed with music Herrman's earlier films. However, while he was showing it to Herrmann, the composer stopped him with, "Young man, I cannot watch your film while I'm listening to Marnie!".
Released theatrically in the United States by American International Pictures (a subsidiary of Orion Pictures Corporation), Sisters was met with almost universal critical praise; Roger Ebert noted that the film was "made more or less consciously as an homage to Alfred Hitchcock", but said it "has a life of its own" and praised the performances of both Kidder and Salt. Vincent Canby of The New York Times called it " a good, substantial horror film" and stated "De Palma reveals himself here to be a first-rate director of more or less conventional material", also noting the film's references to Repulsion (1965) and Psycho (1960). Meanwhile, Variety, while stating it was "a good psychological murder melo-drama", said that "Brian De Palma's direction emphasizes exploitation values which do not fully mask script weakness."
Released theatrically in the United States by American International Pictures (a subsidiary of Orion Pictures Corporation), Sisters was met with almost universal critical praise; Roger Ebert noted that the film was "made more or less consciously as an homage to Alfred Hitchcock", but said it "has a life of its own" and praised the performances of both Kidder and Salt. Vincent Canby of The New York Times called it " a good, substantial horror film" and stated "De Palma reveals himself here to be a first-rate director of more or less conventional material", also noting the film's references to Repulsion (1965) and Psycho (1960). Meanwhile, Variety, while stating it was "a good psychological murder melo-drama", said that "Brian De Palma's direction emphasizes exploitation values which do not fully mask script weakness."
ROTTEN TOMATOES SCORE: 81%
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