When it’s not serving as an overdone travelog for the Monterey Peninsula-Carmel home environment of star, producer and debuting director Clint Eastwood, Play Misty for Me is an often fascinating suspenser about psychotic Jessica Walter, whose deranged infatuation for Eastwood leads her to commit murder. For that 80% of the film which constitutes the story, the structure and dialog create a mood of nervous terror which the other 20% nearly blows away.
Walter gives a superior performance as an unusual woman whose eccentricities are killing. Eastwood has selected excellent support: John Larch as a detective who nearly solves the case; Clarice Taylor, outstanding as a housekeeper; James McEachin as Eastwood’s fellow-deejay on a (real) local radio station; Irene Hervey as a potential benefactor driven off by Walter’s insults and director Don Siegel as a friendly bartender.
