Still of the Night

Dr. Sam Rice (Roy Scheider) is a Manhattan psychiatrist like his mother Grace (Jessica Tandy). He's recently divorced. One of his patients George Bynum has been killed. He is visited by the mysterious Brooke Reynolds (Meryl Streep) who worked with Bynum at the auction house Crispin's. She's also Bynum's mistress. They are interrupted by Detective Vitucci and she accidentally leaves behind a watch. Dr. Rice examines his files on Bynum and suspicions falls on Reynolds.

I really like the Hitchcockian touches. I love the laundry room when the lights go out in the hallway. I did not like all the flashback re-examination of his files. The plot loses its way a bit and some of its tension. Meryl Streep is pretty good as the mysterious damsel-in-distress. Although she's not the classic sex bombshell. Scheider is still a good leading man. This could be a much better mystery thriller.

This film has received quite a few negative posts. I also read Leonard Maltin's review, in which he said that it was full of holes and was a weak Hitchcock homage. I really think people are all wrong about this one; it's full of some very good old-fashioned suspense, and I love all of the Hitch touches many here have already noted. As well, it must be recalled that Hitch dealt in many implausibilities in his films. He hated those who constantly pointed out that "that could never happen in real life." It's not real life, it's a movie! That's one of the ways I thought this film succeeded, was in reflecting (or even gently parodying) Hitch's use of things that would never happen in real life. Loved the chemistry between Meryl and Roy, not to mention the lovely mentor/parent shrink/shrink relationship between Roy and Jessica. Nice work from Robert Benton. I love this film. --Matthew Hays

Quiet thriller with great acting from Meryl Streep, taken a slightly different route with the paranoid performance from Roy Schnieder. Unfortunately some other of the other performances are quite poor, with the standard dumbed down cops. Slow to pick up, it's worth sticking with past the stock plot setup routines. There's some neat camera work to strengthen the guessing game and make you feel the paranoia and fear of the doctor. There's a fantastic sequence in central park where the Doctor follows a mystery woman, losing her beneath the light \ dark pools of street lights. Using the sound of her footsteps to pull your attention forward to a tunnel. The final moments of that sequence are brilliant. Throughout the lighting is used to great effect with all other senses and even performances extremely restrained. A good film which I'm sure has influenced many others of this genre.

I think that writer/director Robert Benton was trying to make this movie akin to something Alfred Hitchcock would have made, but "Still of the Night" doesn't work as an homage or even a regular thriller. There is a real aloof feeling to this movie throughout - you don't really get a sense that any of the characters are those that are real flesh and blood. Roy Scheider was a talented actor, and Meryl Streep certain is, but even they seem overwhelmed by the depressing atmosphere and can't add much life. The main problem with the movie, however, is that it is extremely slow and boring. There are no shocks and there isn't even any real tension at any point. This extends even to the music score - there's almost no music in the entire movie. And it's extremely easy to figure out who the killer is, since the movie doesn't exactly give us a long list of suspects. Movies like this gathered dust in video stores for good reasons.

I almost turned this movie off in the middle because I was tired of being manipulated by the corny scary stuff that was overwrought and too dragged out. That stuff was okay for the master, Hitchcock, but today it has whiskers.

I was very surprised to see Meryl Streep looking more beautiful than ever before or since. It was the way her hairdo framed her face, I think. Any way, this movie was all Streep. Scheider has a certain gravitas which many Hollywood Idols never achieve even though they are far more popular. But Streep—from her first moment on screen I said to myself, I've never seen this side of her! She's created an entirely original person! Then she delivered a soliloquy toward the end of the movie which she fashioned with such skill and insight that one would think it was Shakespeare!

There is simply no one as good as Streep, man or woman. She turns this average movie into something worth watching.