Fantastic!

There are better movies of two hours length. I loved the actress'performance.

Funny, strange, confrontational and subversive, this is one of the most interesting experiences you'll have at the cinema this year.

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

Lauren Bacall was rocking Broadway in 1981 as "Woman of the Year" when this last ditched effort of the "hags in horror" series, referring to the abundance of aging actresses who kept their career going in fright fests, usually in fright wigs or carrying some sort of cutting device. Bacall still looked gloriously gorgeous at this point (as she would through the remainder of her long life), so it is unfortunate that while still popular, she would be tied in with something that at the time was as reviled in the gay community as "Cruising" and "Windows".You can't tick off a show queen and expect to get away with it. That is the point of this whole movie. Bacall is a legendary star who is unfortunately the idol of the obsessed Michael Biehn, a handsome young man who has built a shrine to the diva he worships. He writes letters to her and she always politely responds. But something for her isn't right after the letters keep coming, and she politely ends the continuing correspondence. Biehn blames this on her secretary (the always wonderful Maureen Stapleton) and takes it out on her in a bloody sequence that is very graphic. This makes him the target of an investigation, and that means Biehn must go into hiding which results in one of the most horrific murder sequences where unfortunately an innocent gay man is the victim. Bacall's lover (James Garner) is determined to protect her, but obsessively crazy knows no reality, and as we know from history over the years, innocent stars can't stop them no matter how much security they have.Still offensive today, it doesn't resonate the deep hatred that gay audiences had for this back in the 1980's. It is actually extremely camp, with its Marvin Hamlish musical numbers so rapidly written and so hastily staged that they resemble something from a notorious 80's flop more than something that became a major hit. Of course, tastes have changed since Bacall was "one of the girls whose one of the boys", and that is why so very few of these late 70's/early 80's musicals (the major hits not included) are never revived. Had the film been done a bit more sensitively and not bitten at the gay community, it might have had less animosity towards it. But in reflection, if you simply look at it as a product of its time and dismiss the "psychotic show queen" as simply an error of its time, you may have a good time, either fighting off the chills of the slasher sequences or the giggles over the campy musical numbers.

Lauren Bacall, playing a star very much like Lauren Bacall, has one hugely obsessed fan out there in Michael Biehn. He'll do just about anything to gratify his obsession to be near here and that includes killing just about everyone else he views as a threat.Even with the presence of a couple of really huge movie legends like Lauren Bacall and James Garner playing her ex-husband and better friend, the film is about The Fan. Michael Biehn is a truly terrifying human being and all the more so because at first glance he looks so incredibly normal and even hunky. Not someone you think would be obsessing over a middle-aged movie queen.Bacall is really playing herself her. Her Sally Ross just like Lauren in that decade had transplanted herself from Hollywood to Broadway and was scoring great success. The scenes showing the rehearsal for her Broadway show is something I can easily imagine her doing when she was preparing for her role in Company. Bacall is a most famous tenant of that famous building the Dakota on Central Park West and with the angles of the shot we can't tell if it was in fact the Dakota, but it was on the park as there are shots of Biehn watching it from across the street.The whole film was done on location in New York and one brief scene in the gay bar where Biehn picks up a victim to kill in order to make the police and Bacall believe he committed suicide was the legendary and notorious Haymarket. Back in the days before the AIDS plague hit, it was a legendary spot world wide for rent boys. It closed in the early Eighties as did many such establishments. I'd be curious to know how they got permission to shoot there. Still folks from the New York gay scene will recognize it. Maureen Stapleton does a nice job as Bacall's secretary who answers her fan letters and who becomes Biehn's first victim as in his twisted mind she's keeping him from his obsession.When all's said and done The Fan is a slasher flick, but it's a slasher flick with style.

Spoilers (not that it matters): This is the most ludicrously melodramatic line in the movie sung (actually spoken) by Lauren Bacall, an aging actress staging a comeback in a musical in this "suspense thriller". There is nothing suspenseful or thrilling in this movie, and the alleged musical the actress is starring again, seems to have been improvised on the spot instead of being fleshed out even minimally; which only serves to undermine an already unbelievable plot.The villain of the piece is a disturbed young man who has developed an obsession of this actresses old films. He is never explained, and we learn nothing about him, other than he has chosen complete isolation as he pursues his obsession. His sister comes to his apartment to try to talk to him before he shuts her out too. He remains at this level of anonymity for the rest of the film. If this was intended to add to the mystery or interest of the character, it doesn't succeed. We care nothing about this character, other than he appears to be a sad, lonely young man with little social skills. It's hard to believe however that a guy this good-looking with this good a voice, would be this lonely and isolated. If he were truly mentally ill, he would have been evaluated by now.The movie is mean-spirited and sadistic, only Maureen Stapleton seems to actually be alive and fleshed out in the movie, and James Garner seems to be there only as a prop as the boyfriend.I actually came across a copy of the book this movie was based on, in the value bin of a bookstore many years ago. I leafed through it, to see how a movie this bad could be based on a successful novel. The book is written as a series of "letters", which used to be a popular style in the late 1800s. In the book, the heroine is aloof, her secretary is abrasive (she actually responds to the fan's first letters by saying "Are you for real? Why don't you go bother another actress?" Something a real assistant to a celebrity would never do: antagonize an unknown loony.) The boyfriend is presented as an aloof lug. The villain is presented as an emotionally-numbed narcissistic verbose bore. The author is deliberately laconic about the heroine's demise at the end. In short, the book is deliberately written as emotionally distanced. Why the author thought this would be effective in a thriller, I have no idea. Why the book was a success is a true mystery.Unfortunately, the emotionally flat part of the book got translated into the screenplay. The older actress is never developed, the lonely and pathetic villain is never explored, and nothing actually "develops" in this movie. There is no arc of any kind. The actor playing villain pumps as much life as he can into a dead script and dead lines that do nothing to help him; to the point where you actually start feeling sorry for the actor, not scared of the character! This movie deserves to be forgotten about and obscured in film history. This may sound harsh, but it contributes nothing to the viewer, will waste two hours of your time, and will leave you wondering why it was ever made based on its screenplay.Lauren Bacall deserved much better than this, and why she didn't demand better is the biggest mystery about this movie. I'm sure it's not one of the films she enjoys talking about.I'm glad the "villain" of the piece, went on to bigger and better things.Bacall sings "I want it all!" at a point in this film; that's especially ironic, considering there's nothing here. Two stars.

I think to see the actress Lauren Bacall in a sense playing herself as a well known actress in this 1981 thriller was exciting to watch. Ms. Bacall was 57 years old then. I was not comfortable watching actor Michael Biehn portray a psychotic killer. I rented the video in the year 2006 and I was unaware actor Michael Biehn had made this movie "The Fan." I had seen "The Terminator" on video in 1987 and I was use to thinking of actor Michael Biehn as a hero and not a villain. I saw the movie "Aliens" on video in 1992 and, again, I was use to thinking of actor Michael Biehn portraying a hero character. I think actor Michael Biehn did a good job portraying a psychotic killer. Maybe it helped actor Michael Biehn "acting range." It must be a difficult experience for a popular man or woman in the "public eye" to have an ordinary life. The public knows who you are because of the attention he or she receives in the media; therefore, an obsessed fan may "cross the line." I think the music score and the performances by the character actors and actresses were good.