Blow Out
(1981)
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Blow Out is a 1981 thriller film, written and directed by Brian De Palma. The film stars John Travolta as Jack Terry, a movie sound effects technician from Philadelphia who, while recording sounds for a low-budget slasher film, serendipitously captures audio evidence of an assassination involving a presidential hopeful. Nancy Allen stars as Sally Bedina, the young woman Jack rescues during the crime. The supporting cast includes John Lithgow and Dennis Franz. The film is directly based on Michelangelo Antonioni's 1966 film Blow Up, substituting the medium of photography with the medium of audio recording. The concept of Blow Out came to DePalma while he was working on the poorly received thriller Dressed to Kill. The film was shot in the late autumn and winter of 1980 in various Philadelphia locations on a relatively substantial budget of $8 million. Blow Out opened to minuscule audience interest in 1981, however it received a mostly positive critical reception. The lead performances by Travolta and Allen, the direction by DePalma and the visual style were cited as the strongest points of the film.