Into The Night (1985) is an American comedy/adventure motion picture directed by John Landis, and starring Jeff Goldblum and Michelle Pfeiffer. The film is notable for a large number of cameo appearances made by various filmmakers and directors, including Landis himself. The soundtrack features the songs 'In the Midnight Hour' and 'Lucille', performed by African-American blues guitarist B.B. King. While the picture was being filmed, Landis was still caught up in the controversy surrounding his previous release, Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983), during the filming of which an helicopter accident led to the deaths of Vic Morrow and two Asian child actors.

Plot

Upon discovering that his wife is having an affair, depressed insomniac Ed Okin (Jeff Goldblum) drives aimlessly around Los Angeles; he ends up at the airport, where he is surprised by a beautiful jewel smuggler, Diana (Michelle Pfeiffer), who lands on his car and begs him to drive her away from four Iranian secret police agents who are chasing her. She persuades him to drive her to various locations, and he becomes embroiled in her predicament. After becoming increasingly exasperated with her demands, he discovers that Diana has smuggled priceless emeralds from the Shah of Iran's treasury into the country, and is being pursued by various assorted assailants, including the aforementioned SAVAK agents and a British hitman (David Bowie).

The couple's caper gets increasingly out of hand, until Diana is eventually taken hostage by the SAVAK thugs at the airport; here, Ed finally comes into his own, saving the day and curing his insomnia and acute boredom in the process.

Cast

• Jeff Goldblum as Ed Okin
• Michelle Pfeiffer as Diana
• Dan Aykroyd as Herb
• Bruce McGill as Charlie
• David Bowie as Colin Morris
• Richard Farnsworth as Jack Caper
• Vera Miles as Joan Caper
• Irene Papas as Shaheen Parvici
• Clu Gulager as Federal Agent
• Kathryn Harrold as Christie
• Stacey Pickren as Ellen Okin

Cameo Appearances

John Landis appears in the film himself as the mute member of the quartet of Iranian henchmen, alongside:

• Jack Arnold, director of science fiction films including It Came from Outer Space (1953), as the man with the dog in the elevator.
• Rick Baker, Academy Award-winning make-up artist on An American Werewolf in London (1981), as the drug dealer.
• David Cronenberg, director of body horror films including Shivers (1975) and Rabid (1977), as Ed's supervisor in the boardroom.
• Jonathan Demme, Academy Award-winning director of The Silence of the Lambs (1991), as the thin federal agent with glasses.
• Richard Franklin, Australian director of Roadgames (1981), as the aerospace engineer sitting next to Herb in the cafeteria.
• Carl Gottlieb, who co-wrote Jaws (1975), as the large federal agent with moustache.
• Amy Heckerling, director of Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982) and Clueless (1996), as the clumsy waitress.
• Jim Henson, creator of The Muppets, as the man on the phone talking to 'Bernie'.
• Colin Higgins, who wrote Harold and Maude (1971) and directed The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas (1982), as the actor in the hostage film.
• Lawrence Kasdan, writer and director of Body Heat (1981), as the police detective who interrogates Bud.
• Jonathan Lynn, writer of Yes, Minister, as the tailor who fits the SAVAK agents.
• Paul Mazursky, director of Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice (1969) and An Unmarried Woman (1978) as Bud Herman, the beachhouse owner and accused drug dealer.
• Carl Perkins, rockabilly musician and composer of 'Blue Suede Shoes', as Mr. Williams.
• Daniel Petrie, director of A Raisin in the Sun (1961), as the director of the hostage film.
• Dedee Pfeiffer, actress and sister of Michelle Pfeiffer, as the hooker.
• Waldo Salt, Academy Award-winning screenwriter of Midnight Cowboy (1969) and Coming Home (1978), as the derelict who informs Ed of his car having been towed.
• Don Siegel, director of Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) and Dirty Harry (1971), as the man caught with a girl in the hotel bathroom.
• Roger Vadim, director of And God Created Woman (1956) and Barbarella (1968), as Monsieur Melville, the French kidnapper.

Critical reception

Into The Night has a rating of 38% on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 21 critics' reviews, indicating a mixed critical reception. Vincent Canby in the New York Times wrote: "A little bit of Into The Night is funny, a lot of it is grotesque and all of it has the insidey manner of a movie made not for the rest of us but for moviemakers on the Bel Air circuit who watch each other's films in their own screening rooms." He reserved praise, however, for the performances of the two leading actors: "Mr. Goldblum does little except react to the outrages of others, which he manages with a good deal of comic poise. Miss Pfeiffer, last seen as Al Pacino's cocaine-zonked wife in Scarface, is so beautiful that one is apt not to notice that she has the potential for being a fine comedienne." Variety held a similar view, writing that the "film itself tries sometimes too hard for laughs and at other times strains for shock," while also praising the performance of Jeff Goldblum, "nonetheless enjoyable as he constantly tries to figure out just what he's doing in all of this."

Some critics saw the large number of cameo appearances by Landis's friends and colleagues as unnecessary and distracting. Roger Ebert in the Chicago Sun-Times wrote: "If I had been the agent for one of the stars, like Goldblum, Michelle Pfeiffer, Richard Farnsworth or Kathryn Harrold, I think I would have protested to the front office that Landis was engaging in cinematic auto-eroticism and that my clients were getting lost in the middle of the family reunion." Time Out wrote: "The casting of innumerable major film-makers in small roles seems an unnecessary bit of elbow-jogging, but David Bowie makes an excellent contribution as an English hit man, and the two leading players are excellent: Pfeiffer in particular takes the sort of glamorous yet preposterous part that generally defeats even the best actress and somehow contrives to make it credible every inch of the way."

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