They Made The Movie Here Film Festival 2006

MASQUERADE

Dan’s Papers’ “They Made The Movies Here” FREE Film Festival continues to warm up Westhampton’s Performing Arts Center where, at 3 p.m. on Saturdays, films bearing the likeness of our photogenic neighborhoods ignite the screen. How about that? And, it all comes as a FREE GIFT (to borrow the advertising redundancy).

This week’s movie is Masquerade, a romantic suspense thriller and kissy-kissy-poo fun. The title Masquerade is another grammatical discrepancy because, though it covers veiled identities, it also (in more advertising jargon) lays bare, wicked, wretched lives and naked tanned bodies, looking very blush plush, especially as displayed against the florid backgrounds and lush Southampton estates and John Barry music. Even Shelter Island looks kind of like Florida.

It’s a splashy mix of swanky yacht racing and nasty poor boy competitions to get the poor little rich girl and her liquid funds. It unzips passion and defrocks vulgarities to clobber and distance itself from its relationship to the gentility of Alfred Hitchcock’s 1941 “Suspicion,” starring Cary Grant as the handsome lug who loves his wife, but oh, that dowry.

The 1985 Masquerade gives us the handsome baby face Rob Lowe, looking premature as the most knowledgeable and best boating captain and lover on the East Coast. Arriving in the Hamptons under the cloud of a shady past, seaman Lowe quickly has women going overboard for him. There’s the yacht owner’s wife who likes him buck-naked, for her eyes only (and of course the movie audience). Kim Cattrall portrays her without flinching when using naughty words and therefore, can get things off her chest easily, especially articles of clothing. Many other women’s eyes turn to Rob’s butt, but he turns to the young orphan with millions, a greedy, live-in stepfather, and a local policeman who’s loved her for years. Meg Tilly is the young love starved lady and is tearfully spunky and believable.

From this point on, the movie has more twists than a raspberry Twizzler and can get stretched even thinner. But, cloyingly sweet, thin or twisting itself into self-demolishing turns, it does take hold of you and push you into many surprises with: yachting, talk of faulty propane hoses, sex, terms of the will spelled out, sex, evil conniving (in Amagansett’s Lunch diner, yet!), more sex, murder, marriage, suicide? A red Ferrari and so on.

The director, Bob Swain, and screenwriter, Dick Wolf, were not much interested in the psychological character probing that gave depth to Hitchcock’s glossy pictures. Masquerade is polished but not reflective. Even the Hamptons look too fingerprintless. Pretty polishing dulls the sharp jaggedness this kind of movie should have. For instance, John Barry’s opulent score just doesn’t have the edge that Bernard Herrmann’s music gave to Hitchcock’s films.

Finally, the camera spends almost as much time on Rob Lowe’s bare tush as it does on some supporting actors. There are many highs in the movie, but one gets the idea that his bottom is the real Lowe of the movie.

Naturally, Masquerade is rated R. You know this wild and wooly Hamptons crowd. The cheeky entertainment starts at 3 p.m. Saturday December 16th on Main Street, at the Westhampton Beach Performing Arts Center. Be there with your host Sarah Halsey to enjoy the talk, refreshments and very fresh entertainment.

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.