Nightkill
                                                                                                                   
Director: Ted Post
Year: 1980
Rating: 5.5
This was Jaclyn Smith's first starring feature film after Charlie's Angels (she was my favorite Angel) and though she gives it her all, her years as Kelly didn't really prepare her for a role as emotionally complex as this.  Well, not her all I guess, as she thankfully refused to do a nude scene in the shower. One sign of me getting older is that gratuitous nude scenes just make me feel embarrassed for the actors and I tend to fast forward through them. This was a German production that never made it as intended to the theaters and ended up as a TV movie, which is right where it belongs. The company gave her a fine cast to work with but this film is all Jaclyn Smith freaking out nearly from beginning to end. For good reason though the film tries to be too clever for its own good. It is the sort of mystery that can only happen in a film and by the end you think - wasn't there a simpler way.

 

She and her wealthy industrialist husband (Mike Conners - Mannix) live in a stunning house up on a hill in the expanse of Arizona. I would kill for that house on a hill. Until winter. Anyways, the film opens with the sounds of her making love though we don't see to whom. But someone is recording all the sounds clandestinely. She goes to pick up her husband at the airport - so it wasn't him in the shower with her - and he turns out to be a total SOB - treats her like garbage and has a bag in an airport locker full of money. At work he tells his number two man played by James Franciscus to fire an entire division of the company like they are extra straws. Without even a Six Sigma analysis (something a few friends would laugh at if they read this).

 

Back at the house, Franciscus poisons the boss. Dead. Or is he? Sweet Jaclyn is shocked. I didn't want to kill him. Do you want to call the hospital? Well no. Let's put the body in the ice box for now and I will get rid of it later. I will be back tomorrow but nothing can go wrong. Mind you, the tape is rolling. Then later that night the doorbell rings. It is a cop played by Robert Mitchum looking like a sunburnt totem pole. "I received a report that your husband is missing?". Oh, lots can go wrong as a game of deadly mind games has begun. Also, along for the ride are Fritz Weaver as a grabby drunk and Sybil Danning as his wife. This is ok as a TV movie - good cast and a ridiculous plot and Jaclyn acting like her head will explode at any moment. Nice ending. On the plus side, Jaclyn met her future husband, cinematographer Anthony Richmond who had been behind the camera for Don't Look Now and The Man Who Fell to Earth. A slight come down and apparently, he was drunk on the set for much of the time.