Near-Miss

THE MIDNIGHT MAN

Directed and Written by ROLAND KIBBEE and BURT LANCASTER

The Midnight Man is neither an exotic spy stalking the romantic capitals of the espionage world nor a menacing psychopath stalking some picturesque Gothic mansion. Rather, he is a weary night watchman, working the lobster shift at a backwater college, who has the misfortune to discover a murdered coed on his rounds. Jim Slade is a onetime top cop who has just done time for killing his cheating wife and has taken this job only because it is the closest thing to police work the parole board will allow. Portrayed by Burt Lancaster --who is turning into an attractive, hard-working actor as superstardom fades--he is a functionary trying to suppress his old hunter's instincts in order to keep his job security intact.

There are a number of other interesting figures: arrogant professors with tenured status in this obscure academic grove, a family of backwoods sadists who rent their muscles to various malefactors, a parole officer (Susan Clark) whose sexiness doesn't quite fit her job category, a good-ole-boy campus cop (Cameron Mitchell) who is a lot shrewder than he acts. Together they almost manage to create a memorable, if not exactly original portrait of petty pretense and ambition in a small town.

Unfortunately, the movie's good intentions are undone by a script that gets bogged down in a needlessly overcomplex plot. What is good in the film is constantly lost in a tedious exposition. It is as if the movie's makers-- including Lancaster, who functions as co-director -- never recognized that what was truly worthwhile in their work was back ground, atmosphere and the social di agram of a town.

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