Of all of the directors to emerge from the “new Hollywood” movement of the seventies, Brian De Palma deserves to be considered one of the biggest. While his career has cooled in recent years, for about twenty-five years or so, he was at the top of his game, delivering more than a handful of classics. His first breakout success was arguably the 1976 Stephen King adaptation, Carrie, which put its young cast, including Sissy Spacek & John Travolta, on the map. His follow-up, The Fury, wasn’t quite as big but still has one of the greatest endings ever (an exploding head repeated dozens of times), but he had a smash with the Hitchcock-styled thriller Dressed to Kill in 1981, which he followed-up with the underrated Travolta thriller, Blow-Up.
De Palma hit the big time in 1983 with Scarface, which helped him breakout from the thriller mode. While he would return to the Hitchcockian thrillers that made him sporadically, Scarface signalled a shift into wider terrain. Some of these films would be smash hits (The Untouchables, Mission: Impossible), some would be flops (The Bonfire of the Vanities) and some would be masterpieces (Carlito’s Way & Casualties of War). In this episode of WTF Happened to this Celebrity, we dig into one of the greatest Hollywood directors of all time.
This episode of WTF Happened to this Celebrity is written (with Brad Hamerly), produced and narrated by Taylor James Johnson. Watch previous episodes below and let us know in the comments what your favourite Brian De Palma movie is!