Looker (1981).  Director: Michael Crichton.  Starring: Albert Finney, Susan Dey, James Coburn.

Michael Crichton will always be best known as the author and creator of the "techno thriller."  However, Mr. Crichton also directed seven films (eight if you count his reshoots for The 13th Warrior).  Of his films, I'd say Westworld, Coma, and The Great Train Robbery are his best.

And then there are the others...

I first saw Looker shortly after its theatrical release, most likely on HBO.  I was struck by several things, from the nudity (that's not to say the film is replete with it) to the idea of creating computerized images of people to the neat-o Looker "gun" that blasts a hypnotic light at its subject and momentarily "freezes" them.

I didn't see the film again until just recently, and I was struck by several things, not all of them good.

The movie opens by introducing us to Dr. Larry Roberts (Albert Finney), a successful Hollywood plastic surgeon.  A client, a stunning blonde model asks him to perform minute (we're talking changes in the millimeters) plastic surgery on various parts of her body.  Roberts is curious why such a beauty would want such surgery and she states that it's to make her "perfect".  After the surgery (and her recovery), the model is stalked in her apartment by a mysterious man wielding a mysterious weapon.  The model ultimately falls to her death from the apartment balcony while our mystery man plants a pen and a button in the apartment.

Later, Dr. Roberts finds the police in his office asking him questions about the just deceased model, noting that another patient of his also recently died in a car accident.  The police office doesn't come right out to say the Doctor is a suspect, but in the course of his visit he verifies the pen found in the dead model's apartment was the Doctor's.  He also notes the Doctor is missing a button on his jacket.  After the police leave (and the whole plotline seems to leave with him) Dr. Roberts is visited by the third model he performed the minute operation on.  She is clearly at her wits end, and demands he operate on her and make her look like what she was before.  Because she's perfect now, she says, her life is in danger.

The model exits Dr. Roberts' office in a hurry, leaving behind her purse.  From it, Dr. Roberts finds a printed list of the model's defects, down to the millimeter.  This, Dr. Roberts realizes, was the basis for the four model surgeries he performed.  He rushes to the apartment of the model who left his office but arrives just as she plunges from her balcony.  Dr. Roberts then spots a mysterious mustached man looking down from the balcony.  By the time he reaches the late model's apartment, he finds the mustached man is gone.

To make a long story short: Dr. Roberts then approaches Cindy Fairmont (Susan Dey) the last of the four models he performed the minute operations on and decides to keep a close eye on her.  She's already attracted to him, so this proves relatively easy.  Soon, Dr. Roberts and Cindy Fairmont discover that a big corporation is using computerized graphics of models to create hypnotic commercials designed to force viewers to buy whatever it is the company is trying to sell.  The company's ultimate goal, however, isn't in selling food or cars or cleaning products: they are behind a presidential candidate and are about to launch hypnotic commercials designed to get him elected.

As I said before, the film is rife with logic problems, the chief one being: Why kill the models?  Considering this is the "hook" that draws the viewers (and the protagonist) into the story, it seems a rather large omission.

Compounding the film's problems is the fact that the villain's (James Coburn) henchmen are awfully dumb, and the whole "let's frame Dr. Roberts for the model's death" subplot is (I'm not kidding) completely dropped from the film.  Further, the movie's climax takes place in a studio filled with sets but devoid of any people.  You see, the villain is able to make computerized images of people, but he has to place those images into real life sets.  Looking -pardon the pun- at this from a modern perspective, it seems silly that they can create completely lifelike human beings but are unable to create static sets.  Their whole commercial -from start to finish- should have been made in the computer.

So, what does the above have to do with Alternate Takes?

Well, in the course of investigating information about this film on imdb.com, I found that there was one very prominent scene removed from Looker and reinserted into the film when the movie aired on network TV.  Curiously, this scene happens to be the one that sorta/kinda explains why the models were killed in the first place!  Please note this scene is not in the current DVD release of the film.  However, if you're curious, you can see it here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lu91AQaLGiI.