THERE is another version of Fatal Attraction (World, 9.35m) available (hard to find, but it is out there somewhere) that features director Adrian Lyne's original ending. The original ending is better than the one shown in cinemas (and hence the one you will see this evening), but was changed by the producers because it did not go down well with a test audience that was obviously chosen from a passing busload of Japanese tourists.
Nevertheless, Fatal Attraction was more than a box-office smash. It became a cultural phenomenon. It is an excellent psychological drama and only begins to fall apart at the seams when it reaches that substitute ending. Cheap thrills replace intelligence, but that's Hollywood for you, as Adrian Lyne discovered to his creative cost.
Michael Douglas, son of Kirk with the dimple in his chin, plays Dan Gallagher, a Manhattan lawyer who loves his beautiful wife (Anne Archer) and six-year-old daughter.
But lawyers are never perfect (they only think they are) and when Gallagher meets Alex (Glenn Close) he has a brief fling with her and tries to leave without so much as a by your leave.
She is having none of it and slowly but very surely - as Alex begins to make life difficult for him and his family - he realises she is one sandwich short of a picnic.
The performances in Fatal Attraction are all a cut above the usual. Close does a particularly good job of going bonkers and Archer does a nice turn as the steady, but alluring wife.
It is a shame about the thrill-a-minute conclusion. Don't let it spoil your enjoyment.