Still of the Night

[Eddie Love]

It seems that any director who rose to prominence in the 70s in France or America tried their hand at one of the Hitchcockian pastiches that were in vogue at the time. Hot off his Oscar-laden triumph as writer and director of KRAMER VS. KRAMER, Robert Benton reteamed with that film’s female lead, Meryl Streep, to take a stab of his own homage to the master of suspence. Indeed, STAB was the working title of his film that was eventually dubbed STILL OF THE NIGHT and it’s a tight and tasty little thriller that holds up marvelously.

The story unfolds in tony, upper-class enclaves of early 80s Manhattan and centers on a psychiatrist played by Roy Scheider. One of his patients has been brutally murdered and at the same time the police seek his guidance, Roy gets involved with a mysterious woman who’d been in a relationship with the dead man. Soon the good doctor is drawn deeper still into the mystery of revealing his patient’s killer by mining his notes of their sessions and attempting to analyze the dead man’s dreams.

I can watch almost any movie shot in New York in the 70s and 80s, and this one conveys a certain austere tone that captures the brittle, uptown setting. That said, there really aren’t that many exterior location scenes, at least not a first. Daringly, the picture’s first 15 minutes or so, which lay out its premise, all take place in Scheider’s office. When the movie does open up, it does so slowly at first. The picture may be set in Gotham, but we don’t see a lot of people. It’s only when there’s a bustling set piece in an auction house that we get a healthy crowd around. Otherwise, the feel is airtight and tense.

And Scheider perfectly sets the dramatic baseline. His command of the camera is effortless, you never see him act, yet he invests the whole film with the quiet seriousness of his character and his environment. He’s cast against type in a role that seems better suited to an Alan Alda or Donald Sutherland, as his other notable characterizations were more rough-and-tumble, yet he perfectly conveys the urban, intellectual professional. And you’re never taken out of the picture by wondering why the reliable ass-kicker from THE SEVEN-UPS or MARATHON MAN is asking “Is anybody there?” whenever he’s troubled by a looming shadow. And he never goes over the top, as he did in some later roles.



Of course, Meryl Streep is very good as the dead man’s mistress. She has one long monologue towards the end that’s very powerful, perfectly played. That said, would the film be more memorable with a femme who was perhaps a bit more...fatale? Hard to say. Not to be a pig about it, but I did wonder watching this if the movie would have benefitted from a more…um…alluring star in the role, incomparable actress though she is. (All right, fine – I am a pig.) Although, in the context of the film it’s entirely believable these men would fall for this tremulous, neurotic woman. Especially the dead patient played to reptilian perfection by Josef Somer in a series of highly effective flashbacks that unfold throughout the picture. He seems like just the sort of lecherous cad who would hit on this fragile woman.

Throughout, Benton performs a number of self-conscious exhibitions of sheer Hitchcockian tribute, and he’s clearly having fun. These bits all work and a few even thrill, and for the most part are marvelously subtle. There’s a reveal of the killer after a nocturnal stalk through central park – that borrows from CAT PEOPLE – that’s wonderfully blink-and-you’ll-miss it. It’s like he’s covering Hitchcock in a moody, low-key, as opposed to the lurid, over-the-top DePalma mode. And best of all, though the script may have shades of SPELLBOUND to it, it’s highly original and audasciously structured. It doesn’t mine giant chunks of plot points from classic films like DePalma was doing at this same time. And the unnerving climax is pretty scary and plays out without any music.

Barely ninety minutes long, STILL OF THE NIGHT is an expertly crafted little thriller. It may feel at times like a stylistic excerise, but it’s a highly entertaining, if subtle, one. In fact, I bet if the directorial tone had been more obvious and over-the-top, this would have resonated more with audiences and critics at the time of it's release.