Night Owl

I first bought this film because I'm a jennifer Beals fan. I enjoyed the film very much. The interaction between Jennifer Beals character and that above her husband was very well done.

In the five years they have been married "Harry," (James Wilder) has been unfaithful to "Julia" (Jennifer Beals) only once. He has regretted it ever since but Julia still hasn't come to terms with it. As a result, although she still loves him, she has a problem being intimate with him. Enter a female entity known as the "Night Owl" who appears on a radio program and gets into the minds of lonely men and entices them to their death. Anyway, because it was a made-for-television movie I didn't honestly expect much from it. But it turned out to be a pretty good film all the same. I liked the performance of Jennifer Beals and the way she and James Wilder managed to convey their fragile love for each other. And while the special effects weren't anything to get excited about I still thought they were adequate for the most part. In short, while this film isn't necessarily one that will have you on the edge of your seat, it's still probably good enough for the time spent to view it.

I suppose I have to give this movie an '8' because I appreciate the effort and the fact that I found it very entertaining and moody. I found this little gem in the video store and I'm glad I saw it. Yes, it's obscure, but it's worthwhile for a rainy evening's entertainment.

Harry (James Wilder) is a saxophone player in a small jazz combo that plays in a New York jazz club. The atmosphere of the jazz club is exquisitely rendered and the music is superb. I don't know if Wilder is actually a saxophone player, I couldn't tell if he was actually playing, but his portrait of the musician is spot on. The art of jazz is celebrated here. This what I liked best about this film. The music and the ambiance suggests loneliness of the great metropolis and of lost chances. Harry and his wife Julie are having problems of trust. Things go unspoken between them. At this point a mythological element enters the picture. Some ancient feminine spirit is driving lonely men mad manifesting as a disembodied voice on the radio, a female DJ with a smooth sexy voice who plays jazz late in the night. The keyboard player in the combo falls in love with the radio voice.

Harry's wife Julie realizes she's having to battle archetypical mythological spirits for the soul of her husband, and her own as well. I won't give it away. I am pleased when any movie takes note of mythological forces even in a low-budget film like this. At one time civilization had coherent mythologies as a guide to psychological understanding. Now we're left with an degraded psychology where pharmaceuticals are the first and last resort to treat anxiety and depression. This leaves us at the mercy of mythological forces which, because they're so poorly understood, are extremely dangerous. Psychology was once informed by mythology, (think of Freud and Jung), now it has been reduced to a pill a day to keep the blues away.

This is not a great film, but it has a wonderful ambiance. I'd hate to see it just be lost in the caverns of time. I think it's worth viewing.

This film opens up with great helicopter photography flying over New York City and over the Brooklyn Bridge and close ups of the former Twin Towers along with fantastic jazz music. James Wilder, (Harry) is an outstanding saxophone jazz player who is married to Jennifer Beals,(Julia) who are having a problem with their marriage because Harry had an affair and Julia does not trust him any longer. There is a Radio DJ called the Night Owl who has a very sexy voice and seems to drive all her male listeners up the walls. A piano player in Harry's band listens to this Night Owl and all of a sudden he jumps to his death because this voice in his head drove him completely crazy. This film is rather way out and I do not recommend viewing it.

Anything with Beals is ok. Even the cheesiest ones.