The ‘80s in 40: ‘Body Double’ (October 1984)

The ‘80s in 40 revisits the decade of the 1980s choosing four movies a year, one from each quarter. This entry covers the fourth quarter of 1984.

Where was the edge? How far could you go before the world told you you’d gone too far? And could you keep going anyway? The answer to some of those questions, at least as they applied to the early 1980s, could be found in the journey of one hit song.

The Liverpool new wave act Frankie Goes to Hollywood made its debut in 1983 with “Relax,” which, while free of profanity, was pretty clearly about sex and specifically about, to put it politely, staying power. Controversy soon followed, but it’s a controversy the band and its label, the newly formed ZTT, actively courted. Lead singer Holly Johnson and backing vocalist Paul Rutherford not only didn’t try to hide the fact they were gay, they made sure everyone knew it. One ad for the band featured Rutherford dressed as a sailor beneath the tagline “All the Nice Boys Love Sea Men.” The song’s first video, directed by Bernard Rose, is set in a leather club where Johnson frolics with a live tiger before a cheering crowd and an obese man whips off his toga shortly before what can only be called the clip’s climax. (Just watch it. I’m not going to attempt to describe this moment.)

Sure, the band could say the song was about “motivation” not sex and claim that the line “when you want to suck it, chew it” was about something else entirely, but these were the tiniest of fig leaves, and Frankie Goes to Hollywood wasn’t really fooling anyone. Nor were they trying that hard. They got away with it, too. Despite, or maybe because of, a BBC ban, the song became a big hit in the U.K. and, a bit later, in the States. “Relax” remains one of the signature tracks of the era and was already in the process of achieving this status when Brian De Palma featured both the song and the band in his 1984 film Body Double, in which the director pushed his signature mix of sex and violence further than he ever had before. Unlike Frankie Goes to Hollywood, he didn’t get away with it.