1985’s “Into the Night” is a neo-noir nocturnal excursion that stars Jeff Goldblum as a catastrophically depressed engineer who cannot sleep. When he returns to his house during the middle of a difficult work day, he finds his wife engaged In flagrante delicto with another man. His life is falling apart. Then he drives to LAX, where a gorgeous jewel thief (Michelle Pfeiffer) drops onto the hood of his car. Suddenly, this glum office drone is on an adventure. But he still can’t sleep.
John Landis directed “Into the Night” three years after the tragedy of the “Twilight Zone: The Movie” on-set accident. That’s a haunted film, and I’ve always felt Landis was in some way dealing with the horror of his involvement via “Into the Night,” but he’s never copped to this. Goldblum’s Ed Okin wants to sleep, and, in the context of the movie, he deserves to rest. But Landis has much worse to answer for, and, thus, he refuses to let Okin off the hook.
Landis should’ve been down for good after “Twilight Zone: The Movie,” but he bounced back because he still had commercial value to studios. Importantly, he also possessed the skill to make crowd-pleasing blockbusters with top talent, like “Coming to America” starring Eddie Murphy. That skill diminished after a while (somewhere around 1992’s “Innocent Blood”), but despite his well-deserved infamy, stars were quite willing to work with Landis. This was all it took to keep him in the game, and it’s how he assembled an impressive cast for “Into the Night,” which is filled with the kind of random Hollywood cameos for which Landis is known. The film industry couldn’t have been more supportive of Landis at that point.
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John Landis poured on the cameos with Into the Night
John Landis had some kind of pull. “Into the Night” features terrific performances from folks like Jeff Goldblum, Michelle Pfeiffer, David Bowie, Vera Miles, Irene Papas, Dan Aykroyd, Clu Gulager, Richard Farnsworth — and that’s without getting into the cameos. A partial list of the showbiz notables who pop up throughout the film: Jim Henson, David Cronenberg, Carl Perkins (who fights to the death with Bowie in an apartment living room where “Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein” is randomly playing in the background), Lawrence Kasdan, Jonathan Demme, Rick Baker, Roger Vadim, and Amy Heckerling (playing a clumsy waitress, which is perhaps an homage to Donald Sutherland’s unforgettable portrayal of a clumsy waiter in Landis’ “Kentucky Fried Movie”).
Critics and moviegoers couldn’t have been less impressed with Landis’ all-star thriller. “Into the Night” was a financial bomb (grossing $7.5 million at the box office against an $8 million budget), and it received mostly negative reviews from the nation’s top critics (including two thumbs down from Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert). Luckily for Landis, he had “Spies Like Us,” a zany Cold War comedy starring Chevy Chase and Aykroyd, opening later in 1985. A year after that, he delivered the Western comedy “¡Three Amigos!” (which brought together Chase, Steve Martin and Martin Short), even as Landis dealt with the ensuing trial over “Twilight Zone: The Movie.” The guy just kept on rolling along.
“Into the Night” has never developed a cult following, but I’ve always enjoyed its mix of dark comedy, action, and straight-up yuks. It’s also got a killer theme song from B.B. King, and, in general, is a great Los Angeles movie (if you know the city well). You’ll know early on if this is your type of film.
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