THE MIDNIGHT MAN was just one of a number of films that came out in the mid-1970s that attempted to update the 1940s film noir genre. Other prime examples were NIGHT MOVES, THE LATE SHOW, and THE LONG GOODBYE. Unlike those titles, THE MIDNIGHT MAN got mixed to negative reviews and quickly sank without a trace. There was a brief VHS release and a heavily edited version was shown on TV but this new Kino Lorber Blu-Ray and or DVD release is the first quality one the movie has ever received.
I have more than a passing interest in this film as it was shot at Clemson University which is near my hometown of Greenville, SC and it had a number of local theater colleagues who appeared as extras. It also serves as a time capsule of Clemson as it was back in 1974 (before the NCAA football titles) when it was just a small upstate South Carolina college town and of how the nature and attitude of Hollywood filmmaking changed during the 1970s after the long time Production Code was abolished in 1968.
Burt Lancaster, who was in several original film noirs in the 1940s (THE KILLERS, CRISS CROSS), co-wrote, co-produced, and co-directed THE MIDNIGHT MAN along with Roland Kibbee who specialized in screenplays and TV work including several series such as IT TAKES A THIEF, COLUMBO, and BARNEY MILLER. Their goal was to shoot an updated film noir as if it were a Mystery Movie of the Week only with an R rating that could include adult language and situations such as nude photographs and more graphic violence.
Lancaster plays a former cop, now an ex-con, who is hired by an old friend as a night watchman at a small Southern college. When a co-ed who happens to be the daughter of a prominent South Carolina senator is murdered, a search is on to find a stolen tape she made. A suspect is quickly arrested but Burt thinks they have the wrong man and he sets out to find the real killer. Of course he eventually does but not before more murders occur along with a blackmail scheme and a couple of double-crosses as well.
The plot is classic film noir stuff but since this is 1974 and not 1947, the movie veers off into much darker territory that incorporate elements of DELIVERANCE (made 2 years earlier) and David Lynch’s BLUE VELVET (although that film was still 12 years away). The movie seems ahead of its time in its tone and overall construction which is why it is beginning to find a new audience online and on home video. The insightful if somewhat digressive commentary which comes as a bonus feature helps to point this out.
Joining Lancaster in the cast are a host of veteran character actors including Cameron Mitchell, Harris Yulin, Morgan Woodward, Ed Lauter, and Charles Tyner. You may not recognize the names but you certainly will recognize the faces and the voices. The principal female role is skillfully and subtly played by Susan Clark who made her mark in the 1970s in the TV movie BABE (not the pig movie) and later the TV show WEBSTER. The victim is played by Catherine Bach before she became Daisy Duke on THE DUKES OF HAZZARD.
Seeing the film again for the first time after it’s initial release, I can see why I didn’t like back in 1974. Back then it was seeing a classic Hollywood star like Lancaster uttering profanities and indulging in what was then graphic violence . It was also the Southern stereotypes which also irritated the local SC audience. Today it plays like an adult episode of COLUMBO which is what Lancaster & Kibbee intended in the first place. Not a great movie but a pretty good one that needed to be 30 minutes shorter.
The Capsule Critic 