Still of the Night (1982)

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

While not quite Hitchcokian, this film is too intellectual for the American audience. I believe that to be the reason that it was such a failure at the box office. But in my view, this is a very good -- though low-keyed -- suspense film.The story involves a psychiatrist (Roy Scheider) whose patient is killed, and a mistress (?...Meryl Street) of his goes to him for help. But could she be the killer. And could she want to kill the psychiatrist as part of a cover-up. And of course, they fall in love.Roy Scheider is excellent and believable here as as Dr. Sam Rice, the psychiatrist. Meryl Streep -- a little surprising as a blonde -- does very well making us wonder if she is the guilty adulteress. Jessica Tandy is along in a nice role as Scheider's mother and fellow psychiatrist. And Josef Sommer turns in another steady role (as he always did as a character actor) as the original victim.Aside from a slightly slow pace (but after all, we're talking about all well-educated and refined people here) is that we have little reason to believe that the ultimate murderer is the guilty party. It's sort of thrown on us late in the film.Aside from that, this is a well-acted film. Recommended. Once

Yea, it has Roy Scheider in it who plays a psychiatrist who gets involved with Meryll Streep somehow who may or may not be a psychotic killer whose stalking him. Or maybe she is being stalked by a psychotic killer and he's trying to help her or something. Can't remember. Saw it along time ago and I remember I loved it. Thought the performances were great. It had a psycho in it and it was well directed and well written. At the end Roy Sheider blows up a shark with a gun and a tank of compressed air. No wait, that was the French Connection. Anyways if I see it again I'll probably update this review but probably not because I'm not getting paid to write this and so really don't care whether I've convinced you to see this movie or not. All I can tell you is that I remember loving it about fifteen years ago. If the matrix has turned it into a terrible movie by now I recommend you don't see it. Remember the magic word, it rhymes with "Microsoft". It is "Obey".

It seems inconceivable that Robert Benton should become a filmmaker without a sense of humor. His earlier screenplays co-written with David Newman, not to mention "The Late Show" (Benton's prickly, funny private-eye comedy from 1977), were filled with little bits of clever homage and dry wit. "Still of the Night" is just that: still. It's an old-fashioned murder mystery which follows the pattern of familiar noirs and thrillers from the past, but it fails without any personality from Benton or his actors. There's nothing tangible going on in Meryl Streep's performance as an auction-house employee in New York City whom everyone thinks is a killer; she's aloof and unreal, only connecting with the audience in the two or three instances where she cracks a smile. Roy Scheider plays a psychiatrist who may be marked for murder, and he falls for Streep's mystery woman despite the signs that she's unstable. The picture creaks and groans until the last act, where Benton suddenly livens up and brings the thing to a commendable conclusion. A talky, impersonal piece of work overall, and not worth the trouble except for Streep-completists. *1/2 from ****

"Still of the Night" is one of the more obscure entries in Meryl Streep's filmography, even though it came out in 1982 in between two of her greatest films, "The French Lieutenant's Woman" and "Sophie's Choice". (Until it turned up recently on British television I had never previously seen it or even heard of it). It is a psychological thriller, directed by Robert Benton who had earlier directed Meryl in "Kramer v Kramer". It has often been described as having been influenced by the works of Alfred Hitchcock, and one of the obvious signs of this influence is the fact that the main character, like the heroine of "Spellbound", is a psychiatrist. (Hitchcock was fascinated by psychology and psychiatry, and often makes reference to them in his films).Another Hitchcock touch is the idea of the "man in the street" who suddenly finds himself in trouble or in danger. When one of his patients is murdered Dr Sam Rice, a Manhattan psychiatrist, finds himself becoming emotionally involved with a young woman named Brooke Reynolds, who was not only a colleague of the dead man but also his mistress, and who is also a suspect in his murder. The plot is a complex one, involving Rice falling under suspicion with the police, who believe that he may be withholding evidence about the killing, and his placing himself in danger by his own attempts to solve the crime.The film makes quite deliberate reference to a number of Hitchcock films. Besides the general psychiatric theme, there is also a dream sequence reminiscent of the one in "Spellbound". The appearance of a bird during this sequence is a reference to "The Birds" and possibly also to "Psycho", where Norman's hobby is stuffing birds. A fall from a bell tower recalls "Vertigo" and, as in "North by North West", there is a scene set in an auction room. (The murdered man, George Bynum, was a senior employee of an auction house). There are also scenes reminiscent of "Rear Window" and "Marnie". Jessica Tandy who plays Rice's mother (also a psychiatrist) appeared in "The Birds". Many of Hitchcock's films, including "Notorious", "Strangers on a Train" and "Psycho", feature a strong, dominant mother-figure.Perhaps the most effective Hitchcock touch is the use of a trademark blonde heroine. Although this is far from being one of Meryl Streep's greatest films, she nevertheless gives a very accomplished performance as Brooke, portraying a woman who is clearly disturbed and frightened and who might just also be a psychopath, while leaving (as the conventions of the thriller genre require) that second point open to doubt. Had Meryl been twenty years older, she might have become one of the Master's great muses, along with the likes of Ingrid Bergman and Grace Kelly.And yet any number of Hitchcock references do not in themselves make a Hitchcock film. "Still of the Night" falls along way short of the great man at his best, or even at his second-best. Roy Scheider does not make a very charismatic hero and, except perhaps in the final sequences, Benton never succeeds in generating the sort of nail-biting tension that Hitchcock was so skilled at conjuring up, even in some of his lesser films. Whereas Hitchcock could normally relieve that tension with some effective use of humour, "Still of the Night" is a pedestrian and humourless film, no more than an average eighties thriller. 5/10, largely for Streep's performance.