In 2013, Paramount Pictures will be releasing FATAL ATTRACTION on Blu-Ray as an Original Director's Cut edition. Last week in New York, a friend of mine who works in marketing for Paramount surprised me by giving me an advance copy since he knows that FATAL ATTRACTION is one of my all time favorite films. Hollywood lore talks about how director Adrian Lyne showed his original cut to a test audience in Los Angeles months before the film's release in 1987. The audience loved the movie, until the ending. The original ending did not have the infamous bathroom battle between Glenn Close and Michael Douglas and it certainly didn't contain the climax where Anne Archer delivers the final shot in the chest to Ms Close. The audience didn't want to see an ending that didn't see Ms Close's character get her just desserts and so Mr Lyne and Paramount came up with a new finale and everyone gathered for reshoots. Ms Close famously refused to shoot the ending until threatened with a lawsuit and the rest is history. So I sat this afternoon with the blu-ray not sure what I was going to be seeing and my feelings are mixed about the results. Let me go back....in 1987, I was a Senior in high school and a group of fellow Seniors went to Westport Cinema on the opening night of FATAL ATTRACTION. We had no idea what to expect and by the end, we and the rest of the audience were thrilled, terrified, and exhilarated by the final 5 minutes of this brilliant thriller. I have seen the movie several times since that first viewing but it's amazing how adding a new conclusion to a film changes the entire viewing experience. Here are the details of the original ending....the last scene that remains in this version that was in the original film is the moment where Michael Douglas bursts into Ms Close's apartment threatening her physically. She retaliates by attacking him with a knife but he manages to wrestle it out of her hands and the scene ends with Mr Douglas placing the knife on the kitchen counter and walking out. Here's where the new version begins....Ms Close puts on a recording of MADAME BUTTERFLY and picks up the knife. The action cuts to Michael Douglas and Anne Archer doing yard work when a police car suddenly pulls up the driveway and Douglas is arrested for the murder of Alex Forrest (Ms Close). As he is being put into the squad car, he tells his wife to call their lawyer immediately. As the police car drives away, Ms Archer runs to Douglas's office and picks up the phone. As she is on the phone hysterically crying, she suddenly sees an audio cassette tape marked PLAY ME. She plays the cassette and it is Alex leaving threatening messages for Dan (Mr Douglas). On the tape, she says that she will kill herself if he doesn't come back to her and she will make sure that he goes down for it. Ms Archer takes the cassette out, puts it in her purse and runs out of the room as you hear her yell to her daughter that they have to go see Daddy. The sounds of Puccini's MADAME BUTTERFLY begin as there is a slow fade to Alex sitting on her bathroom floor holding the knife that Dan was last holding in her kitchen. Suddenly and slowly, Alex takes the knife to her own throat and slits it. As her body slowly slumps out of sight, the end credits begin rolling. Thus ends the Director's Cut of FATAL ATTRACTION. From a dramatic point of view, this new edition works. Not to mention that it gives Anne Archer her finest acting moment in the entire film. She was nominated for an Academy Award for her supporting performance but was never really a contender in the race. However if her final scene had been included, she probably could have given Olympia Dukakis a run for her money that year. The final shot of Alex killing herself is chilling, but it certainly doesn't have the "bang" that the theatrical version had. We want to see Alex get it and get it good and especially at the hands of the wife, who earlier threatened Alex that if she came near her family again, she most definitely would kill her. Watching the movie again, I was once more in awe of Glenn Close's incredible performance. Alex Forrest has to be one of the screen's great villains, but Ms Close also gives Alex enough of a soul that there is a certain amount of sympathy that she deservedly receives from the audience. It's clear that Alex has had an abusive shattered past and she saw one last glimpse at happiness in the arms of this married man. Still shocking that Glenn Close lost the Oscar to Cher for her performance in MOONSTRUCK. I adore Cher in that film, but her performance has nothing on Glenn Close in FATAL ATTRACTION. Michael Douglas also does fabulous work here, but his performance as Dan was overshadowed by his Gordon Gekko in WALL STREET, which won him the Best Actor Oscar that year. I was thrilled to see this version of FATAL ATTRACTION, but in the future when I watch this classic, I will be viewing the original theatrical version. It's just not the audience pleaser without that final shot ringing out....
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