And those first two scenes with Hurt suggest a large part of the answer: not only will the sex be explicit, but men can be objects of desire, too, equal partners in the collaborative arts of crime and lovemaking. Nearly 40 years after Barbara Stanwyck established herself in Fred MacMurray’s ho-hum insurance man in the noir classic Double Indemnity, writer-director Lawrence Kasdan was looking for ways to modernize the genre without losing its essential cynicism, duplicity and ripe stylization. “I like that in a man.” She’s found her mark. Not long after Ned meets Matty Walker, a sultry femme fatale played by Kathleen Turner, she sums him up succinctly: “You’re not too smart,” she says. Next time Ned appears before his court, the judge hopes he “has either a better defense or a better class of client”. The judge has summoned his Ned Racine to the bench along with his opposing counsel (and buddy) Peter (Ted Danson), and wants to make his disrespect for Ned absolutely clear before offering him an opportunity to take a generous plea bargain. The next time we see William Hurt in Body Heat, he’s working his day job as a lawyer and doing it poorly.
