Blow Out (1981) on Netflix
Jack Terry, a sound recordist in Philadelphia, is gathering effects for a slasher film when a car plunges into a creek. He saves Sally Bedina; the driver, a governor, is dead.
- Netflix3.3/5
- IMDb7.4/1078,164 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes85%
Trailer
Plot summary
Jack Terry works with sound in Philadelphia, and his current job is the slasher picture Co-ed Frenzy, where his producer Sam wants a more convincing scream and better wind. Jack takes his equipment to a park to record effects there. A car leaves the road and goes into a creek. Jack dives in and brings out Sally Bedina; the driver, Governor George McRyan, a presidential hopeful, is dead. At the hospital a detective questions Jack, and Lawrence Henry, an associate of McRyan, arranges for Sally to be slipped out unnoticed. When Jack plays back his recording of the crash, a sharp report sounds before the tire fails, which makes him doubt that the crash was an accident. A news report tells him that Manny Karp was there with a camera.
Cast
- Curt Mayas Donahue
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Blow Out (1981)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- During editing on Blow Out, two reels of footage from the Liberty Parade sequence were stolen and never recovered, and the scenes were reshot with insurance money at a cost of $750,000. With cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond no longer available, László Kovács filmed the new sequences.
- Brian De Palma considered Al Pacino for the role of Philadelphia sound technician Jack Terry in Blow Out, but ultimately cast John Travolta instead.
- John Travolta lobbied Brian De Palma to cast Nancy Allen as Sally Bedina, and De Palma hesitated because he was married to Allen and did not want her known for working only in his films, but he agreed; the three had worked together on Carrie.
- Blow Out alludes to elements of the JFK assassination and refers to the Zapruder film in its footage of the car "accident." It also recalls the Chappaquiddick incident, though Brian De Palma deliberately downplayed those similarities.
- The flashback in which John Travolta's Jack Terry recalls an incident from his past was taken from Prince of the City, an abandoned Brian De Palma project he felt had been "stolen" from him. Sidney Lumet ended up directing that film.
- In Blow Out, Dennis Franz's character watches Brian De Palma's own earlier film Murder a la Mod on television; the character was originally to watch Francis Ford Coppola's Dementia 13, but Roger Corman demanded too much money for the rights.
- Quentin Tarantino lists Blow Out alongside Rio Bravo and Taxi Driver as one of his favorite films, and in homage used the music cue "Sally and Jack" from Pino Donaggio's score in his 2007 film Death Proof.
