Still of the Night

Robert Benton has written some of my favorite movies, including Bonnie and Clyde, What’s Up, Doc?, The Late Show, and Places in the Heart. He directed and wrote this one. It’s a neat little thriller starring Roy Scheider and Meryl Streep, two of the best in the business. Roy is a psychiatrist and one of his patients has been killed. There is a chance the killer will be coming after him, too. For reasons he incompletely explains to his shrink mother (Jessica Tandy) he feels compelled to find the killer himself. The action centers around an upscale auction house (they sell a Jackson Pollock for one million two, and everyone applauds the money), where Meryl works. Can’t say a lot about the plot, but one scene at the big auction might remind you a bit of the one in Hitchcock’s North by Northwest.