In the 1970s and 1980s director Brian De Palma had some high
profile hits with Hitchcockian thrillers such as "Sisters", "Obsession",
"Dressed to Kill", "Blow Out" and "Body Double". De Palma's defenders
extolled the virtues of these films as clever homages to Hitchcock while
detractors accused De Palma of using The Master's formulas to make a
fast buck. In 1982 director Robert Benton jumped on the same bandwagon
with his own Hitchcockian project, "Still of the Night", which was shot
under the title "Stab" before the marketing campaign had been
re-evaluated. A few years earlier Benton had triumphed at the Oscars
with "Kramer vs. Kramer", taking home the Best Director Oscar. That film
also provided an important career boost for Meryl Streep, who also won
an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress. The two were reunited for this
project which stands out on both of their credentials as an odd choice.
Chances are that when you think of Streep's exalted status in the film
community today, the thriller genre is unlikely to come to mind. (Though
she did also appear in "The River Wild" and the remake of "The
Manchurian Candidate".) Benton, who had directed relatively few films to
date, was more accustomed to the genre and perhaps his involvement with
this flawed production can be explained by the fact that the basis for
the story (which he collaborated on with David Newman) was a real life
experience that found him obsessed with a woman who simultaneously
excited and frightened him. Certainly it's a sold premise for a thriller
and through much of the movie Benton provides a compelling scenario
complimented by two excellent actors: Streep and Roy Scheider. The film
falls apart in the final act when it begins to resemble less of a homage
to Hitchcock than an homage to De Palma's homages to Hitchcock- with a
dose of "Play Misty for Me" thrown in (i.e knife wielding killer attacks
protagonist on a balcony that overlooks the churning sea.) It's not
that "Still of the Night" is bad (though Streep has gone on record as
saying it is), it's simply that it hardly seems like it would ever have
been compelling enough to attract two recent Oscar winners.
The film opens in the office of New York City psychiatrist Sam Rice
(Scheider). Like most cinematic headshrinkers, he appears to need
psychiatric care more than his patients do. He's going through the
miseries of a divorce and seems bored and depressed. The only
significant female relationship he has is with his mother (Jessica
Tandy, who perhaps not coincidentally starred in Hitchcock's "The
Birds".) Sam's mundane daily routine takes a dramatic turn when he
discovers that a long-time patient, businessman George Bynum (Josef
Sommer) has been found stabbed to death in his car on a Manhattan
street. From this point some key elements of the story are told in
flashback sequences. Sam remembers Bynum as a sexual predator who had
been having an affair with one of his staff workers. Then he meets
Brooke Reynolds (Streep), a gorgeous thirty-something blonde who seems
both alluring and vulnerable. Bynum confesses that he is obsessed with
her and cut off his previous affair in order to engage in one with
Brooke. Shortly after Bynum's death, Sam is shocked when Brooke appears
at his office, nervous, unsettled and chain-smoking. (Yes, you could
smoke in an office in those days.) In the awkward conversation that
follows she says the purpose of her visit is to return a wristwatch that
Bynum had accidentally left at her apartment. She doesn't want to
return it herself for fear of alerting Bynum's widow about the affair he
was having with her. From minute one Sam is smitten and intrigued by
this quirky, jittery- and stunningly beautiful- young woman. He also
realizes that her cover story about the watch is thin. She actually
wanted to meet him. Shortly thereafter Sam is visited by
Detective Joe Vitucci (Joe Grifasi, channeling every personality cliche
you can think of when it comes to a New York City cop). He asks Sam if
he can shed any light on who might be Bynum's killer. Sam informs him
that anything he had discussed with Bynum would be protected under
doctor/client privilege...but he also finds himself unable to inform
Vitucci about Bynum's affair with Brooke. He realizes he is now obsessed
with her, just as Bynum was. He strongly suspects that Brooke is
Bynum's murderer but can't get her out of his mind. Like Bynum, he's
simultaneously sexually stimulated and terrified of her. Nevertheless,
he begins finding excuses to see her and his presence seems to have a
calming effect on Brooke. The friendship goes to another stage when she
responds to his kiss but Sam is too lacking in self-confidence to
actually seduce her. Meanwhile he begins to experience some eerie
occurrences. He believes someone is stalking him in the basement of his
apartment building. As he follows the mysterious Brooke on a nighttime
walk through Central Park (a chilling scenario for anyone in those
days), he finds himself alone and so unnerved that when a man jumps out
of the shadows to mug him, he is actually relieved to have another human
being on the scene. Director Benton knows that a sure-fire way to
ratchet up suspense is to put the protagonist in a creepy dark house or
in an equally unnerving location. However he goes to the well with this
plot device a little too often. For a man who lives in the heart of
Manhattan, Sam seems to wind up repeatedly in eerie, isolated places.
However, some of the sequences are genuinely suspenseful as in the scene
in which Sam is in the laundry room of his apartment building, deep in
the bowels of the basement. No one is around. There is total isolation
when suddenly the lights in an adjoining room inexplicably go out. You
can share his sense of increasing panic as he knows someone is
stalking him...but who and why? Refrehingly, Scheider portrays Sam as an
everyday guy, not a tough-as-nails hero. He's vulnerable both
physically and emotionally throughout.
The film's primary asset is its two stars, both of whom give intense and
very convincing performances. There are also the usual plot twists and
red herrings one would expect to find in a movie of this genre and
Benton for the most part manages to wring some genuine suspense out of
it even when he resorts to old gimmicks that include a dream sequence in
which Bynum is menaced by an eerie little girl (are there any other
kinds of little girls in dream sequences?) It's straight out of "The
Shining" but then again just about everything in "Still of the Night"
seems recycled, even though it manages to be engrossing right up until
the climax when Benton the screenwriter resorts to every time-worn
cliche imaginable: an old dark house, a sacrificial lamb character, a
vulnerable hero, a knife-wielding maniac...you get the picture. About
all that is missing is John Carradine as a mad scientist. The weak
ending feels like it was tossed together at the last minute and doesn't
retain the suspense or logic that Benton has managed to build
heretofore. Nonetheless, "Still of the Night" is still worth a look if
only for the performances and those few genuinely spooky sequences.