1983. Movie: The Fourth Man (De Vierde Man)
This erotic thriller from Dutch director Paul Verhoeven tells the tale of bi-sexual alcoholic writer Gerard and his escapades with a murderous widow and her hunky boyfriend.
It begins when Gerard has a one night stand with said widow, Christine, then moves on to his plans to bed her boyfriend Herman. But it quickly becomes a lot more complicated than he expected.
Barely out of bed with Christine, Gerard discovers she’s already had three former husbands – all of whom have come to an untimely end. Then the Virgin Mary appears to him in a vision and warns him that he may well become number four – the eponymous ‘fourth man’. Mary goes on to tell him that he’ll be safe as long as he heeds her warning and keeps out of Christine’s way.
Which is all very well – but what about the hunky Herman? Wouldn’t that simply put him at the top of Christine’s death list?
Gerard decides he needs to do the noble thing and go back and warn Herman. (The fact that he still hasn’t managed to shag him yet may also play some part in his decision!)
And so the film focuses on Gerard’s twin obsessions – saving and bedding Herman – not necessarily in that order!
He starts to see visions of Herman (such as that opposite, in his local church). But it’s not usually eye candy: more often than not he sees increasingly gory visions of impending doom.
Not that anyone will believe him, of course. His psychiatrist thinks it’s all alcohol-related delusions. And as for Herman; he thinks Gerard’s increasingly frantic pleadings to abandon Christine are just a ploy to get her for himself.
And so the dark clouds continue to gather. But at least Gerard does find one bit of consolation in the storm…
https://youtu.be/rj2HwAaUcas
Comments
1983. Movie: The Fourth Man (De Vierde Man) — No Comments
HTML tags allowed in your comment: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>