An obvious homage to Hitchcock and old noir's, "Still of the Night" succeeds to a certain degree thanks to it's over-qualified cast.
The mystery is pretty thin but the set up is nice. A murdered man may have told his psychiatrist something in the form of a dream - the murdered man's girlfriend seems to be the obvious suspect but the shrink is shielding her - the girlfriend has a shady past which may have led to the murder; all this reeks of classic Hitchcock and it culminates in a showdown in a creepy old house by the seaside.
The film's mostly well done but the suspense scenes are awkwardly staged, the dream sequence falls short on mystery and is awfully low on visual style and the resolution is one of those tell-all-in-the-final-reel moment that you couldn't possibly have guessed to begin with. And the identity of the killer is a complete letdown.
Still; it's nice to see Roy Scheider in the lead, he's always a likable performer and a very competent actor. Meryl Streep is always a class act and she pulls off her role with ease. It's also very nice to see Jessica Tandy though her role is minimal and could have been scrapped altogether.
Robert Benton is a terrific filmmaker ("Nobody's Fool" a personal favorite) but suspense isn't his strong suit and despite a nice set up and a stylish walk-in-the-park-at-night murder sequence, the script is fairly pedestrian and the resolution wholly unsatisfying. It's still an OK way to spend an hour and a half thanks to the superb cast who all give good performances (Josef Sommer included).
The mystery is pretty thin but the set up is nice. A murdered man may have told his psychiatrist something in the form of a dream - the murdered man's girlfriend seems to be the obvious suspect but the shrink is shielding her - the girlfriend has a shady past which may have led to the murder; all this reeks of classic Hitchcock and it culminates in a showdown in a creepy old house by the seaside.
The film's mostly well done but the suspense scenes are awkwardly staged, the dream sequence falls short on mystery and is awfully low on visual style and the resolution is one of those tell-all-in-the-final-reel moment that you couldn't possibly have guessed to begin with. And the identity of the killer is a complete letdown.
Still; it's nice to see Roy Scheider in the lead, he's always a likable performer and a very competent actor. Meryl Streep is always a class act and she pulls off her role with ease. It's also very nice to see Jessica Tandy though her role is minimal and could have been scrapped altogether.
Robert Benton is a terrific filmmaker ("Nobody's Fool" a personal favorite) but suspense isn't his strong suit and despite a nice set up and a stylish walk-in-the-park-at-night murder sequence, the script is fairly pedestrian and the resolution wholly unsatisfying. It's still an OK way to spend an hour and a half thanks to the superb cast who all give good performances (Josef Sommer included).