Obsessions

The marketing for Pim de la Parra's 1969 would-be thriller focuses on the contributions of Martin Scorsese, who is listed as a co-writer, and legendary composer Bernard Herrmann. In fact, Scorsese's contribution was minimal, and Herrmann's loud dubbed score consists of recycled material and an almost comically crude employment of his characteristically repetitive ostinatos. The film itself is a rip-off of Hitchcock's Rear Window and Psycho, in which a young man (Dieter Geissler) becomes fascinated with unsettling goings-on in the next apartment, which he observes through a peephole hidden by a portrait of Vincent van Gogh. By sheer coincidence, his girlfriend (Alexandra Stewart) is investigating an unsolved murder and the disappearance of a young girl, which might both be related to what he has witnessed, but his obsessive search for the truth only places others in danger. The movie is a shapeless, clumsily edited affair in which scenes seem to be arranged randomly, the dialogue is uniformly flat, the production values are threadbare, and the acting is incredibly wooden. Admittedly, the ending brings a nice twist, but the film's original box office success seems to stem from the fact that it was risqué for the time, featuring nudity and gore. Now it comes across as just a weird cinematic curio with a couple of major names attached. Extras include introductions by de la Parra and Geissler (and interviews with both), a text interview with Scorsese (and a copy of his script notes), and a photo gallery. Not a necessary purchase. (F. Swietek)