The Fan
Tags: murder

Plot synopsis:
Gaurav Chandana (Shah Rukh Khan) is a Delhi-based die-hard and obsessive fan of Bollywood superstar Aryan Khanna (also Shah Rukh Khan); Aryan is Gaurav's whole life. Gaurav's face bears an uncanny similarity to Aryan's, which helps him win the local talent show competition impersonating Aryan. He then embarks on a journey to meet Aryan in person.
When Sid Kapoor (Taher Shabbir Mithaiwala), a fellow actor, expresses harsh sentiments about Aryan to the press, Gaurav gets furious and invades Sid's cabin. He holds him hostage, beats him, and makes him apologise to Aryan while he records it. The video is uploaded to the internet, where Aryan sees it. He considers Gaurav's actions a crime and gets Gaurav arrested. In jail, Gaurav is mercilessly beaten, and Aryan comes to meet him. Gaurav is delighted, but Aryan angrily reprimands him and declares that Gaurav is not his fan. He reveals that he was the one who got Gaurav arrested, and tells him to forget they ever met. Shattered and disillusioned, Gaurav returns home and burns all of his Aryan memorabilia, vowing to get revenge against Aryan for turning his fan away.
One year later in London, Gaurav heads to Madame Tussauds wax museum, impersonating Aryan and purposely creating a havoc situation in which he triggers the police. The real Aryan is then arrested despite declaring that he is innocent. Aryan is bailed out and departs to Dubrovnik for a show. He gets a call from Gaurav, who warns him to apologise or he will destroy Aryan's stardom. Gaurav disguises himself as a crew-member to get into Aryan's show; though Aryan instructs his personnel to look out for him, they fail to catch him.
Aryan is next scheduled to perform at a billionaire’s wedding. Gaurav poses as Aryan and molests the billionaire's daughter. The billionaire berates the real Aryan and makes him leave the event. Outside, Aryan spots Gaurav and gives chase, though Gaurav escapes. The molestation incident gets all over the news, resulting in a tarnished reputation and fans boycotting Aryan's shows. In a press conference, Aryan explains that someone else is impersonating him and asks for time so he can prove his innocence.
Back in India, Gaurav invades Aryan’s home and vandalises his trophy collection. Aryan visits Gaurav's parents and meets Neha, Gaurav's crush. He then devises a plan to impersonate Gaurav and declare his love to Neha at the local talent show. This provokes Gaurav, who shoots at Aryan with a gun. Aryan chases him and subdues Gaurav after a bloody fight. He asks Gaurav to stop this and live his own life. Gaurav says that his life is nothing without Aryan and flings himself off the roof, dying with a smile. A horrified Aryan watches him fall.
Aryan’s name is cleared from all the controversies, but the ordeal still haunts him. On his next birthday, when he goes out to the roof to greet his fans, Aryan sees a hallucination of Gaurav smiling up at him.

Review: The epitome of that in this movie is in the fact that Lauren Becall's secretary - who knows that the fan is disturbed by the content of his letters - never thinks to write down the man's name in the event his obsession becomes a criminal matter.
It completely grabs your attention, from the opening credits, while Michael Biehn (who is excellent in his stalker role) is typing a letter to Lauren Bacall, underscored by Pino Donaggio's effective music.
Singer or not, Bacall was quite successful in musicals on Broadway, and the songs in the film, are the type she would have performed.
I found it to be an interesting character study of an obsessed fan, played by Michael Biehn.
She was just fine, thank you, playing a believable character: a veteran actress being talked by some deranged killer.With Maureen Stapleton, James Garner, Hector Elizondo, some great cinematography with wonderful close-up shots and a good score, what's not to like?
Pretty good, character-driven thriller based upon the novel by Bob Randall.Aging star of film and stage becomes the unhealthy obsession of a young fan, whose love for her will soon turn sinister!Solidly made tale of deadly obsession is a steady paced but ultimately intense thriller.
The most enjoyable performance however is that of a young Michael Biehen, who is not only a talented actor but probably the best-looking psycho to ever grace a movie screen.
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.
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.
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..
Refined performances by Lauren Bacall (which could be seen as a star vehicle for her), James Garner and Maureen Stapleton go along way and the chemistry they share is a pleasure to behold.
A perfectly pitched Michael Biehn convincingly portrays a young lad who's a persistent admirer of an illustrious movie actress Sally Ross (Bacall).
Lauren Bacall stars as an aging actress trying her hand at Broadway late in her career.
Michael Biehn, an upcoming talent who would make his mark mostly in James Cameron action movies, plays Douglas Breen who is an odd young man stalking her.
Bacall might have reconsidered her participation in this flick if she had had a crystal ball, considering the stalker aspect of the movie and the fact that she lived in the apartment building where John Lennon also lived and was murdered at the time of filming.
This time, the perpetrator is Lauren Bacall, playing a Broadway actress (naturally) who talks/sings her way through a few self-important numbers about what it's like to be a famous star.
THE FAN is based on a book of the same name and had the producers left the story intact without changing so many things (including the ending), they might have had a more profitable thriller on their hands.Horror fans in 1981 were expecting much more gore from their slasher flicks than THE FAN was willing to exploit, being that the story is about an obsessed fan with only one thing on his mind when he is rejected.
His vengeance is a blood-thirsty one, but the script is too slow and talky for its own good, pretending to have psychological overtones when it really just wants to get the nasty business over with.LAUREN BACALL plays a variation of herself as an aging drama queen, a Broadway actress with modest musical talent, who is burdened with a stream of fan letters from an unbalanced admirer.
MAUREEN STAPLETON is the secretary who has to bear the brunt of Bacall's rudeness and JAMES GARNER is her amiable ex-husband who has little to do when most of the film's focus is on the fan, played by MICHAEL BIEHN.Summing up: Best described by Leonard Maltin as "an exploitation cheapie in dress clothes", it's not as good as the cast would suggest..
Bacall got into the "Formerly A-List Movie Queen Fright Fest" genre a bit after its peak in this odd blend of glitzy suspensor and violent slasher flick (and even spawned a mini-trend of it's own, the "High-powered female being brought down by a maniac" flick.) The film could hardly be described as "good", but it's still entertaining in a tacky, campy way and does include some unsettling moments.
Bacall is Broadway fixture Sally Ross, attempting her very first musical (just as Bacall had done with "Woman of the Year" and "Applause!") Biehn is an overly fixated fan who types her a stream of increasingly obsessive fan letters.
In adapting it, the writers have diluted the relationships somewhat and pumped up the violence (In the book one person is injured and two die....in the movie two people are injured and at least four people die.) This unnecessarily exploitive approach (especially at the end) is what puts it into the slasher/horror genre rather than the suspense genre (though the film was even softened a bit in light of the then recent killing of John Lennon by a crazed fan.) The worst (and most hilarious) aspect of the film is the depiction of(and assault on the audience from) the musical numbers.
Lauren Bacall stars as an aging Broadway star, the prime target for an obsessed fan who stalks and terrorizes her while maiming and killing her friends in the process.This would have made for a good film, had it been made 20 years EARLIER during the 60's thriller/horror movement starring Oscar-winning actresses like Bette Davis, Joan Crawford and Olivia De Havilland.
Unfortunately, this film appears very outdated and even the killer himself isn't terrifying enough.Lauren Bacall puts in a semi-decent performance as an actress-turned-Broadway star who becomes the fatal obsession of a young record salesman.
Maureen Stapleton plays Lauren Bacall's personal assistant.
When the 'fan' discovers Bacall isn't receiving his letters, he takes swift action which involves chasing Maureen down into a subway station and slicing her cheek with a knife!The most bizarre thing is, instead of killing her, he leaves her hospitalized with only a few minor cuts.
When Bacall reads this in the news, she assumes it means the death of her crazed fan.Unfortunately, the film gets worse from hereon in.
Case in point, check out the camp classic scene where Lauren Bacall barks at Maureen after she discovers she threw her fan mail in the trash!
It comes off as neither plausible or camp classic as a whole and you will find yourself forgetting most of the film an hour later.Watch it only for Bacall's performance of the musical number "Hearts, Not Diamonds" - it's one of the most unintentionally hilarious scenes in film history I have ever witnessed!3/10.
Psychotic loser (Michael Biehn) is obsessed with aging stage actress (Lauren Bacall).
This was Lauren Bacall's last starring role in a major film.
Notable for perhaps being the only movie in which Lauren Bacall makes a booty call (to James Garner, no less)..
Michael Biehn, who played the stalker Douglas, did not act for another two years because this film drained so much out of him.
He considers himself a true fan of middle-aged actress Sally Ross (Lauren Bacall).
Lauren Bacall was fantastic (except for the ending) and she really explores the idea of what it's like to be an aging actress in the film industry.
R.I.P. She plays an actress of the Broadway stage doing a musical, not unknown to Miss Bacall having done several Bway shows including musicals such as APPLAUSE and WOMAN OF THE YEAR.
The wonderful Maureen Stapleton plays Lauren's secretary and as usual is brilliant almost stealing the film.
However the real treat is to watch Michael Biehn make his film debut as the crazed psycho who is an ardent fan that goes too far in stalking his favorite actress.
Maybe if Sally had been written and played by a good looking thirty something actress this might have been a better ( Or less bad ) movie.
Aging Lauren Bacall plays an aging actress about to make her debut in a Broadway musical when an obsessed psycho-fan (Michael Biehn, a few years before kicking ass in "The Terminator" and "Aliens") starts slicing up her friends (including Maureen Stapleton as her secretary) with a straight razor.
Michael Biehn very pulls the movie along and I think he's a great actor...he plays his parts very well and I hope to see more from him..
Lauren Bacall plays the movie and Broadway actress being stalked by a psychotic admirer in New York City, James Garner is her concerned ex-husband and Maureen Stapleton is her long-suffering secretary.
What these seasoned performers are doing in an ungainly, bloody thriller such as this is an ever bigger mystery than why young Michael Biehn worships Bacall's Sally Ross in the first place (is he stuck in a Harold and Maude phase?).
Lauren Bacall plays an actress who's admired by a young psychotic fan (Michael Biehn), who constantly writes letters and then becomes a threat to her life.
Biehn plays a psychotic young boy who's seen one too many of Ms. Bacall's films.
A little too flat.But the (crazy) idea that a closet-case like Michael Biehn is infatuated by Lauren Bacall is one of the movie's many beautifully illogical aspects which makes this forgotten film much more fun than its reputation.
When the end credits roll, all of the main characters are still alive, including Bacall's personal secretary, Belle, played by Maureen Stapleton.
This detail makes me giggle nonstop.Because The Fan only kills secondary characters and few of the main ones are in any direct threat, there's very little tension or suspense going on, which is not good for a horror/slasher flick.
A stalker (Michael Biehn) turns violent when a Broadway actress (Lauren Bacall) spurns him.
It's better acted then most--Biehn, Bacall and Maureen Stapleton give in very good performances (especially Biehn) and the film was originally supposed to just concentrate on Biehn's obsession and the killings were supposed to be bloodless.
Just another example of what might have been a very good psychological thriller turned into a gore movie.To be totally truthful, the murders and attacks aren't THAT bad and the good acting helped keep interest, but I totally gave up on the film with a VERY homophobic scene where a gay man is brutally murdered while...um..."pleasuring" Biehn (although in defense of the movie it was much worse in the book).It all ends up in a horrible sequence in which Bacall goes one-on-one with Biehn.
The plot = A renowned Broadway actress Sally Ross (Lauren Bacall) becomes the object of an obsessed fan played brilliantly by Michael Biehn affections when his countless letters goes un-noticed he feels rejected by her, and starts to terrorise the people in her life until the big moment when he finally gets to confront her.The Fan (1981), not to be confused with the 1996 thriller which starred Wesley Snipes and Robert De Niro, which also had a similar storyline and was absolutely rubbish.
But at times this movie does get a little boring, but it was saved by stand out performances by both Lauren Bacall and Michael Biehn.
Obviously aiming for a more adult audience, but in a year that the 'teenie-kill' epic had come to a crescendo the makers couldn't resist throwing in an exploitative angle- but unfortunately not exploitative enough.Some of the scenes are effective though, like where Biehn slices open a man's stomach while he's in the swimming pool and also Michael Biehn's seemingly unhinged performance, as he furthers descends into madness, which was a real highlight, so glad he went to bigger and better things.
And Lauren Bacall playing the spoilt Broadway actress was a real hoot, obviously following the likes of Joan Crawford and Bette Davis into the ageing actresses in horror's genres, but sadly Lauren Bacall got a lot of flack for starring in this, because of the sleazy elements that this film has.
And the final confrontation between the two leads was rewarding in my opinion and well executed.All in all The Fan is a rewarding viewing experience, a little dull at times but saved by Michael Biehn's outstanding obsessive performance..
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.
I saw the movie "Aliens" on video in 1992 and, again, I was use to thinking of actor Michael Biehn portraying a hero character.
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..
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.
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.
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.
Lauren Bacall plays Sally Ross, a screen and stage legend who is the object of affection and obsession of a deranged and isolated record store clerk, Douglas (Michael Biehn) in New York City.
We see multiple publicity photos of her from her early career, and references to real events in her own life abound (such as her infamous resting atop Harry Truman's piano), and these elements make the film a real treat for Bacall's fans.James Garner supports her as a rather one-dimensional ex-husband, with Maureen Stapleton as her bumbling, dependable assistant.
The final showdown is well-played if not a bit anticlimactic, but it really gives Bacall some especially physical screen-time that is a far cry from her more classic roles in "Written on the Wind," and the films she made with Humphrey Bogart.Overall, "The Fan" is, at the end of the day, a fairly straightforward thriller with little in the way of surprise— in other words, it plays out exactly as you'd expect it to.
That said, it's worth seeing for Bacall's performance alone, which is what the whole film really hinges on: the glamorous actress playing the glamorous actress as a victim of celebrity obsession.
Her secretary, played by Maureen Stapleton, is the one who actually receives and answers the mail, and so Mr. Breen's letters all end up with her at first.
The letters start in a fairly off-the-wall way, so there's not far for them to go, and it's not long before Douglas is imagining a tepid affair between Sally and he, insinuating that Maureen is a lesbian, and Maureen is telling him to cut it out, which leads to a massive bitch-off between Lauren and Maureen that may be the highlight of the entire film if you like massive bitch-offs.
I mean, we know from the first frame of the film who the fan is and that his fixation on Bacall will soon turn deadly.
Bacall does a good job of playing herself and Michael Beihn is effectively cast as the fan.
Not that this classic needs to be remade,but I would love to see a modern re-telling of this movie.It would make a great suspenseful thriller since it has such a good plot.The obsessive fan is a timeless story which could so easily be told today.
I gave this movie an 8 out of 10.The only thing i didn't like was the ending because Lauren Bacall's character didn't seem surprised or scared of Douglas when he attacked her in the final scene.Up until then she did a good job being terrorized by this stalker who killed a lot of people to get to her..
This movie, 1981's "The Fan" stars screen legend Lauren Bacall, Michael Biehn, and Maureen Stapleton.
Bacall plays an actress of stage and screen Sally Ross.
Biehn plays a man named Douglas Breene, who is a fan of Sally's, and Stapleton plays Belle Goldman, who is Sally's secretary.