Wednesday Minute
No. 144 | August 11, 2010

All About Evelyn

Our theme this week
Evelyns at the movies

Featured this week (theme introduction)
Monday         —   Evelyn Salt, Salt (2010)
Tuesday         —   Evelyn Harper, Caged (1950)

Evelyn Draper

 

Audiences today may know Jessica Walter best as the matriarch on Arrested Development, but her early film performance as the obsessed fan in Play Misty for Me is simply unforgettable.  No one had seen anyone quite like Evelyn Draper in a movie before, and a variety of later films—Fatal Attraction (1987) and Misery (1990), to name a couple—owed much to Walter’s seminal role in Clint Eastwood’s 1971 directorial debut.

Evelyn Draper calls a radio station with requests to hear Erroll Garner’s jazz standard “Misty.”  Her obsession is not with the song, but with the late-night deejay Dave Garver, played by Eastwood.  The two meet at a bar.  They have a one-night stand—or so he thinks.  But Evelyn later arrives at his place with an armful of groceries, ready to make herself at home.  Meanwhile, Dave is back with his old girlfriend (Donna Mills), but he can’t get Evelyn to leave him alone.  She’s not just creepy, she’s wildly jealous, apparently deranged, and finally, violent.

A suspenseful thriller set in Carmel, on the California coast, the story carries a hint of Hitchcock.  For Eastwood, it was an interesting choice of parts.  He had done his spaghetti westerns and would soon be playing Dirty Harry, but here he’s a man seemingly helpless to defend himself against a persistent and eccentric woman.  His first time behind the camera, Eastwood had a limited budget and used it well.  The film doesn’t have the polish of a Hitchcock film, or of Eastwood’s later work, for that matter, but Play Misty for Me is an effective and scary film.  In part it’s a cautionary tale, in part a reactionary film aimed at the sexual revolution, with Evelyn Draper the illusory dream lover-turned-nightmare.

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Play Misty for Me (1971)
Clint Eastwood, director
Jo Heims (screenplay, story), Dean Riesner (screenplay), writers
Jessica Walter, as Evelyn Draper
Trailer

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“30 Even Scarier Movie Moments” (2006)
Bravo Miniseries
Play Misty for Me, #26

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Quote of note
Evelyn:  Don’t you like me?
Dave:  You’re a nice girl.
Evelyn:  But who needs nice girls?
Dave:  I’m kind of hung up on one.
Evelyn:  And you don’t want to complicate yourself.
Dave:  That’s exactly right.
Evelyn:  Well, neither do I, but that’s no reason we shouldn’t sleep together tonight if we feel like it.
—Evelyn Draper (Jessica Walter), Dave Garver (Clint Eastwood), Play Misty for Me (1971)

…58…59…60.