The Midnight Man (1974)

How sad is this?

Brilliant and touching

There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

Burt Lancaster plays a down on his luck security guard recently released for the murder of his wife, he becomes employed in a local South Carolina College,he becomes embroiled in a strange murder mystery, where nothing is what it seems until all is typically revealed at the climax. 'The Midnight Man' Co-stars Susan Clark and the future Daisy Duke, Catherine Bach, in her first screen appearance, and character actor Ed Lauter. 'The Midnight Man' is unfortunately obscure to most classic film buffs, it is available on imported DVD which it's transfer is an oddity but watchable. In this age of HD/Widescreen, it's hard to believe that Universal have let this one go! the transfer is 'open matte' which reveals microphones, lights and camera tracks!

Jim Slade (Burt Lancaster) is an ex-cop and ex-con who takes a job as a night watchman at a college thanks to his friend and fellow retired copper, Quartz (Cameron Mitchell). Within a few days, Slade gets the detective bug again when a series of tapes are stolen from a Psych professor's room and Natalie (Catherine Bach), a Sentor's daughter and a subject on one of the tapes, ends up dead. Teaming with his love interest/parole officer Linda (Susan Clark), Slade attempts to unravel the mystery behind this co-ed's death, even though the local Sheriff (Harris Yulin) believes he already has the killer.The 70s were an interesting time for leading man Lancaster and this complex mystery proves to be one of his more unique vehicles. In addition to starring, Lancaster co-wrote and co-directed the film with Roland Kibbee. The film itself has a very flat, made-for-TV feel so it takes a while to adjust to that. If it weren't for the cursing and explosions of violence, I would have sworn it was a TV movie. Once over that hurdle, it is a pretty involving mystery (make sure to have you notepad handy). It is admirable to see Lancaster playing a down on his luck anti-hero (a tough cop who had murdered his wife's lover). There is also a great supporting cast including Robert Quarry, Lawrence Dobkin, Mills Watson and Ed Lauter. Lancaster's son Bill (future writer of THE BAD NEWS BEARS and THE THING) has a small role as well.

If you can look past the slickery and pretentiousness of Roland Kibbee's The Midnight Man, you'll probably find yourself enjoying 2+ hours of NBC Mystery Movie-level murder and mayhem. The cast, headed by Burt Lancaster, Susan Clark, Harris Yulin, and Cameron Mitchell provides the viewer with enough comfort and enjoyment that he or she isn't going to get too frustrated with the cheese doodle topicality, high school-level psychology, and warbling, pop-glop soundtrack.Lancaster plays a recently paroled ex-convict who hires on as a night watchman at a small, southern university. The investigator in him goes to work when a co-ed is murdered.As the bodies stack up and the romance blossoms between ex-con Burt and Parole Officer Susan Clark (who chews scenery while parading around in her bra), you may begin to notice you've lost track of who everyone is, or care for that matter.Whether you see one of the edited versions (all the crudities snipped by NBC in the mid-seventies and a raunchier version on modern cable) or the uncut issue, you'll find that the plot is incomprehensible and the writing tries way too hard to be relevant, but the whole thing is strangely, ultimately satisfying because you--and not the movie--will choose not to take The Midnight Man too seriously.

This could easily have been a script leftover in some shoebox from an unmade 1949 noir. It's a complicated story of blackmail and betrayal. Burt Lancaster is an ex-cop just released from prison, given a job by an old friend (Cameron Mitchell) as night watchman at a college, who falls in love with his parole officer (Susan Clark). A murder takes place. Several murders take place. And some of the signs seem to point to the innocent Burt. There's a blackmail plot with lots of money involved. Well, now, Burt may have just gotten out of the slams but he hasn't unlearned the investigative skills he picked up while on the job in Chicago. Fighting against the local cops every inch of the way, he cracks the case, but not to his satisfaction. He's been used and betrayed by everyone he was close to.No one looks out of place. Susan Clark actually looks pretty darned smokin', with her slender figure and queer beauty, a little goofy, like Nancy Travis'. The local cops are villainous. There is a trio of redneck heavies that -- well, they shouldn't look out of place but they do. This was shot in South Carolina, but it's winter, and it doesn't look like the South, whereas these three unkempt miscreants (including Ed Sauter with his working-class New York accent) look like they're straight out of some Southern Gothic slasher movie -- I EAT YOUR HEAD AND SPIT DOWN YOUR NECK CAVITY!!! One is fat, one is scrawny, all are dumb drunks who tote shotguns and pitchforks and allow themselves to be run over by tractors. They even have one of those mean mothers in Bibb overalls and boots who sneers at captive Burt and says, "Wait'll Lem gets back. He'll take care of you proper-like," or something.There isn't a touch of anything original in the direction, the script, the performances, or anything else. Dave Grusin's score is loud and conventional -- lots of electric guitars and harmonicas and nerve-jangling percussion.Nobody seems to have put any effort into it, which is a little surprising, given Burt Lancaster's tendency to see to it that some social message informs his story, or at least that there is the occasional arty touch. But not here. Everything is functional. No tag lines worth remembering. Instead of Burt Lancaster it might as well have been Charles Bronson.Yet I like the thing and I look forward to seeing it on those infrequent occasions when it shows up on TV. I don't know why. I guess the location shooting captures a particular time and place rather well, though for a college in session it looks really underpopulated. I like Burt as a nobody watchman instead of an important muck-a-muck in the justice system. He looks so terribly humble in that shabby uniform. And I kind of like its lack of pretension. Better a crime thriller that knows its limits than a failed attempt at significance.