The Bedroom Window (1987) from Johnny Web (Uncle Scoopy; Greg Wroblewski)
There's good news and bad news.

The bad news: it's a movie with Steve Guttenberg

The good news: it's one of the the best movies with Steve Guttenberg. Oh sure it still sucks, but how hard is to to improve on Police Academy 4 and Can't Stop the Music.

Just for the record, here's the best and worst of Steve, as determined by IMDb ratings.

BEST:

  • Diner
  • Cocoon
  • The Day After (a TV movie)
  • The Boys from Brazil
  • Home for the Holidays
  • The Bedroom Window

WORST:

  • Police Academy 4
  • Police Academy 3
  • Can't Stop the Music
  • Police Academy 2
  • Airborne
    • Pretty sad when you invest 25 years in the business, and Boys from Brazil is on your highlight reel. (And, worse yet, Guttenberg was not a significant player in that movie.) Actually, Amazon Women on the Moon should probably be number three.

    As you can see, Diner and Cocoon (and maybe Amazon Women) are the only two good movies Guttenberg has ever been in.

    The Bedroom Window comes close - a decent story in the style of Hitchcock.

    NUDITY REPORT
    Huppert is seen topless when she stands at the bedroom window

    She is also seen from various angles in bed with S.G. See Tuna's thoughts for some additional information

    Guttenberg's butt is seen when he goes to the lavatory.
    Guttenberg's lover, who is also his boss' wife, witnesses a minor crime from Guttenberg's window, and she can't admit she was there, so civic-minded Guttenberg tells the police the story as if he had actually seen it. But he keeps getting caught deeper and deeper in his lies until he himself becomes a suspect in far more significant crimes.

    It isn't really very good Hitchcock, but I stayed awake through it, and never touched the fast forward. And if I can say that about a Steve Guttenberg movie, it can't be all that bad. How long could you stay with Can't Stop the Music without reaching for the remote?

    DVD info from Amazon

    It's a weak DVD - image quality no better than VHS.

    Incidentally, I went through two different copies of this DVD, and they were both identically out of synch in various scenes. I suggest you NOT order it, no matter how much you love Steve Guttenberg, since this seems to be a problem in the mastering process. In addition, the image quality was not that impressive.

    		In fact, the first half, until Huppert is killed by the real killer (and Guttenberg therefore loses the only person who can prove he didn't do it), is quite suspenseful in spite of the poor acting. In fact, I sort of enjoyed the first half, but the second half, in which Guttenberg sets a trap for the real killer, is like a completely different movie, and doesn't have any of the tense feel of the opening act. Plus, how dumb do you have to be to be trapped by Steve Guttenberg? Perhaps the criminal was Anna Nicole Smith.

    The writer/director of this movie is Curtis Hanson, the talented guy who did L.A. Confidential, but The Bedroom Window is not the work of a mature and confident filmmaker. Hanson really developed a lot in the intervening ten years. (His only work since Confidential is the eccentric Wonder Boys, a movie universally loved by the critics and universally ignored by moviegoers this spring.)

    By the way, it is completely obvious that Isabelle Huppert and Guttenberg couldn't stand each other, and they must rank among the three worst pairs of screen lovers I can name (Alan King and Ali McGraw in "Just Tell Me What You Want", Travolta and Tomlin in "Moment by Moment"). They are supposed to be overwhelmingly hot for each other - well, that's what the words say, but they just had no chemistry, and certainly no passion. They couldn't even look at each other.

    TUNA's THOUGHTS
    The Bedroom Window (1987) is a homage to the classic Hitchcock thrillers. Unfortunately, Steve Guttenberg is no James Stewart, and Isabelle Huppert is more decorative than talented in this film, but it is engaging enough entertainment if you don't think too hard about it. A man (Guttenberg) is having an affair with his boss's wife (Huppert). She witnesses an attempt by a serial rapist/murderer on Elizabeth McGovern (who turned in the best performance in this film) through the bedroom window. She finally screams and scares the assailant off. She can't go to the police without alerting her husband to the affair, so she convinces Guttenberg to report it as if he had been the witness.

    When his near blindness without glasses comes out in court, the suspect is freed to start over, and Guttenberg becomes a suspect.

    Act one shows promise, act two is illogical at best, and act three is just plain dumb. If you can turn off your brain, it might worth the price of a rental. The exposure comes from Huppert in the opening scenes where she is in bed with Guttenberg than goes to the window nude. She has good breast exposure. Her character is also shown nude from the back, including a rear gyno cam shot, but I am nearly certain this is a double. First, the sequence starts with a very rough jump cut. Second, if you enlarge the first double image, you will see a reflection in the window. There is some distortion, but the face doesn't really look like her, and the breasts droop a little too far.

    For a well-written review, see the one by Berardinelli, who only awards two stars.

    The Critics Vote

    • General consensus: two and a half stars. Berardinelli 2/4, Maltin 3/4, Apollo 68.

     

    The People Vote ...

    • With their votes ... IMDB summary: IMDb voters score it 6.3, Apollo users 61/100. Movies scoring 6.3 at IMDb are generally worth watching. (7.5 makes the top 250 of all time)
    • With their dollars ... $13 million domestic gross
    My guideline: A means the movie is so good it will appeal to you even if you hate the genre. B means the movie is not good enough to win you over if you hate the genre, but is good enough to do so if you have an open mind about this type of film. C means it will only appeal to genre addicts, and has no crossover appeal. D means you'll hate it even if you like the genre. E means that you'll hate it even if you love the genre. F means that the film is not only unappealing across-the-board, but technically inept as well.

    Based on this description, Scoop says "this film is a solid C. It isn't so bad that it will turn off genre fans, and it isn't good enough to turn on those who hate Steve Guttenberg". Tuna says, "As an homage to Hitchcock, it is a dismal failure, but as a grade B thriller, it is no worse than the typical direct to vid efforts, and hence watchable. C-."

    Return to the Movie House home page