Overlooked Movies -- The Midnight Man

This movie appears to have been a personal project for Burt Lancaster. He's listed as one of the directors and one of the screenwriters. His son has a role in it, and of course he's the star. It's based on a novel by David Anthony (William Dale Smith) called The Midnight Lady and the Mourning Man. As you can see, Lancaster changed the title. I guess he didn't want second billing.

Lancaster plays a former cop just out of prison for the killing of his wife and her lover. He takes a nightwatchman job at a small college, and sure enough there's a murder. A co-ed who seems to have had some big secrets has made a tape of them, and the tape is missing. As for the murder, not to worry. The local sheriff wraps it all up in record time. Except that Lancaster's sure the sheriff has the wrong man, and he's determined to find the real killer. He does, but it takes a while.

Lancaster has a great cast with him in this one. Susan Clark, Cameron Mitchell, Ed Lauter, Harris Yulin, the inevitable Nick Cravat, and, briefly, Catherine Bach. Among others. The movie's a little slow, but Lancaster's excellent. So's everybody else.

I'll be talking about the book the movie's based on in Friday's post.