Be absolutely certain to be at the Westhampton Beach Performing Arts Center on Main Street before 3 p.m. this Saturday November 3 because when the lights go out, so do the lights in Michael Caine's house, instigating the very dark comedy/drama A Shock To The System - a gleefully shocking film of murder. Lively and deadly as sin, urbane Caine spreads his delicious, malicious malevolence over rich locations from the glitzy-greedy 1990s Wall Street area all the way out to sunny foamy Montauk with some very comfortable homes of means in between.

Mr. Caine apparently likes "Movies Made Here." He's worked his way out here in movies like Death Trap in East Hampton directed by Sidney Lumet and in Sag Harbor with Alan Alda's Sweet Liberty. For all we know, he might be working his particular kind of magic just past the college in Shinnecock Hills. Like a magician, he's able to change characterizations like the colors of silk handkerchiefs and pop up, amazingly, like a rabbit out of a hat. In A Shock To The System he appears as an advertising executive teetering on the corporate ladder of success. His bills are as nagging as his wife (Swoozie Kurtz). She expects his devoted talent to the company to get him a promotion. He knows he deserves it and will get it. He needs to be content at work. His home life consists of a house, a mortgage, a snippy wife and two yappy dogs. Take the scenario of the movie's opening.

It all began one night when the lights went out. Caine is in bed when his annoying wife switches on her big, expensive stair-walker exercise machine. Bing-ho! The lights go out. They bicker-bicker. He cusses the machine. She complains that he should pay for a new wiring system. Blah! And Blast! He goes to the basement. To get to the fuse box he must get an ailing light bulb lit. Grasping a pipe with one hand, he reaches the light socket and ka-pow! He's thrown by a shock a powerful shock to the system. However, he's OK! The electric power might be out, but he is filled with a sense of real power. He survived. He's a gosh-darned sorcerer. A magician capable of extraordinary things. He can curse the darkness. Abra-cadabra! Shaza-kazam! Bibbidy bobbidy-BOO!

A wizard or not, he was still a power failure in his own home. And, though he has an attractive young assistant (Elizabeth McGovern) drawn to him, he did get the promotion. Infuriated, he leaves work early and while waiting for a subway train, he is accosted by a beggar. Put upon by the fellow he pushes him into an oncoming train. Hell breaks loose and no one has noticed him. Kala-Kazoo Ka-Zam, it's that simple.

Accidents can be fortuitous. So, when he has a business trip, he carefully shows Swoozie how to turn on the light to see the fuse box. Swish! Swoozie is gone in a flash. Hokus pocus! Bye, bye, baby. Then, on his new yuppie boss' boat he notices a faulty gas stove. How simple. Especially with Elizabeth, the sorcerer's apprentice, as an alibi. Ala-kazam KA-BOOM! He gets the job he should have gotten. He never needed a ladder. He is cleverly blasting his way to the top. That is if the dog-gone, dogged detective loses the scent.

I'll only add that the amazing Caine has a lot of chicanery up his beautifully cuff-linked sleeves. I know he has me, your absent without leave host, Guy de Fraumeni twisted around his little finger. Sarah Halsey is also a fan and, she'll be there to be sawed in half with pleasure. The refreshments, of course, are real and the seating deluxe. Bye, bye, baby, ka-boom!

Guy Jean de Fraumeni is the producer/writer/director of award winning European and American feature films. He has been a judge at Major Film and TV award competitions, including the Oscars, the Emmy's and various film festivals.

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