INTO THE NIGHT
“INTO THE NIGHT”
(Production Notes)
“Into the Night” is a thriller-comedy about two strangers who stumble into international intrigue and share a bizarre and deadly adventure in the night world of contemporary Los Angeles.
The film is the eighth feature film of director John Landis, whose credits include “Trading Places,” “National Lampoon’s Animal House” and the rock video “Michael Jackson’s Thriller.”
The role of a quiet-living aerospace engineer whose insomnia leads him into a life-and-death adventure is another big step in Jeff Goldblum’s steady growth from memorable small parts to starring roles.
Michelle Pfeiffer has one of the largest and richest roles of her career to date as the beautiful young woman who lives on the edge of big money and big powgr and slips into big trouble.
These two young stars are supported in “Into the Night” by an eclectic gathering of international talent.
Richard Farnsworth, the stunt man turned award-winning actor, plays a dying millionaire who ends his colorful and powerful life with a stunning beau qeste. Farnsworth describes Jack Caper as “an old dinosaur trying to go out with a little dignity.”
To portray an Iranian wheeler-dealer, the imperious and ruthless Shaheen, Greek actress Irene Papas came to work on a Hollywood location for the first time and played one of her few roles with comedic overtones.
Shaheen, says the acclaimed tragedienne, is a woman who “wants to see how far she can go with evil.”
Writer-director-producer Paul Mazursky takes on his 14th feature film role in “Into the Night,” his third time playing a producer. The versatile filmmaker started as an actor and comedian. Says Mazursky, “I’ll always be an actor.”
Kathryn Harrold, most often cast to date as the professional type, plays a giddy and ambitious starlet, a role that ranges from light humor to sudden tragedy.
Except for a small part in his own film “Charlotte” (1976) Roger Vadim’s portrayal of the suave and sinister Monsieur Melville is his first acting venture since he was a teenager in the French theatre. The director of the landmark “And God Created Woman” and many other films calls the mysterious Melville “an elegant villain with a sense of humor.”
Veteran actress Vera Miles, often seen as the loving wife of actors such as John Wayne, Henry Fonda and James Stewart, plays the mercenary and manipulative spouse of a rich, powerful man (Richard Farnsworth) in “Into the Night.”
David Bowie, one of the few rock stars to have achieved a solid reputation as a dramatic actor, plays the English assassin Colin Morris. The chameleon performer, who scored a Broadway acting triumph in “The Elephant Man,” says “I was flattered when John Landis asked me to be in this film, because he has made some of my favorite films of the past decade.”
“Ghostbusters” star Dan Aykroyd appears as Herb, Jeff Goldblum’s engineering coworker. In this supporting role, Aykroyd is reunited with Landis, who directed him in “Trading Places,” “Twilight Zone — The Movie,” and “The Blues Brothers.” On the latter film, Aykroyd and Landis were also the cowriters.
“Into the Night” represents the film debut of country music legend Carl Perkins, who plays an Iranian playboy’s diligent bodyguard. He interrogates Jeff Goldblum-in a.swanky club and wages a fatal fight with David Bowie.
The “Into the Night” company filmed the movie’s ambitious action climax in the passageways and gate areas of Los Angeles International Air-
port, working smoothly around the terminal’s ongoing operations. No production had ever before been allowed to film such extensive action at LAX.
Other large-scale filming sites included Rodeo Drive, from Santa Monica Boulevard to Wilshire Boulevard; interior and exterior scenes at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel; the yachting docks of Marina del Rey; the downtown flower market, and the streets of Century City, where a chase climaxes in a parking structure.
The more than 40 locations in the film, ranging across the city, also included: the historic Marion Davies mansion in Beverly Hills, built by William Randolph Hearst; the operational Burroughs electronics plant in Westlake; Battaglia, an elegant men’s clothing store on Rodeo Dr-hie; Hollywood Boulevard exteriors, including the front of the “X-rated” clothing store Frederick’s of Hollywood; a Malibu beach house; a Hollywood apartment building; Touch, a private club; the gaming area of the Playboy Club (Century City); and the exterior of Tiffany’s on Wilshire Boulevard.
A house in Pasadena featuring Saracenic architecture doubled as the home base of Shaheen and her entourage. An empty penthouse suite in theWestwood area of Wilshire Boulevard was converted by the film’s art department into the luxurious residence of the doomed Hamid.
The working Set of a television series (“Kalijak: San Francisco P.D.”) was recreated on exterior sets at 20th Century Fox Studios, where Landis once worked as a mail boy.
Working on impressively authentic locations is becoming a habit for Landis and producer George Folsey, Jr., who staged the climax of “Trading Places” on the floor of the never-before-filmed Commodities Exchange in New York. They filmed the pursuit finale of “An American Werewolf in London” amid the traffic of Piccadilly Circus.
“The Blues Brothers” featured the invasion of Chicago’s Daley Plaza and its city government offices, spectacular car stunts in the city’s streets and tunnels, the reconstruction and subsequent demolition of a deserted shopping mall and the fall of an automobile into the heart of the city from a height of 1200 feet.
“Into the Night” gave British cinematographer Robert Paynter the chance to capture the diverse atmosphere of the City of Angels on several levels.
This challenging project had him filming at night for over 10 of the 14- week schedule and required mammoth lighting setups for locations such as Rodeo Drive, the docks of Marina del Rey, the downtown flower market, the exterior of the Marion Davies mansion and streets and a parking structure in Century City.
The score of “Into the Night” is uniquely designed around the talent of one performer, blues guitarist and singer B.B. King. The Grammy-winning artist makes his feature film singing debut on the soundtrack and stars in his first video, titled “Into the Night,” under the direction of Landis.
The eclectic score features two new songs by composer-conductor Ira Newborn–“Into the Night” and “My Lucille.”
Michelle Pfeiffer’s red Napa calif jacket which she wears throughout much of the film is the third leather jacket created for the screen by costume designer Deborah Nadoolman. She designed Indiana Jones’ aviator’s jacket for “Raiders of the Lost Ark” and Michael Jackson’s red and black jacket worn in “Michael Jackson’s Thriller.”
THE ACTORS
JEFF GOLDBLUM’S portrayal of Ed Okin in “Into the Night” is a solid step on his rise from memorable small parts to starring roles.
Goldblum was recently named New Star of the Year by the National Association_ of Theatre Owners after his portrayal of the magazine reporter in the hit film “The Big Chill.” He won additional acclaim in the challenging title role of the television movie “Ernie Kovacs: Between the Laughter.”
Goldblum’s other starring parts include “Threshhold,” the PBS play “Popular Neurotics,” and the television series “Tenspeed and Brownshoe,” in which he costarred with Ben Vereen.
Goldblum built a following and a reputation for quality acting in a remarkable variety of small but rich performances. These include the mud bath proprietor in “Invasion of the Body Snatchers,” New Jersey in “The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai” and a NASA recruiter in “The Right Stuff.”
Among his earlier work, he was the meditator who forgot his mantra in “Annie Hall,” the mysterious magician in “Nashville” and the garrulous actor in “Next Stop, Greenwich Village.”
Goldblum’s other credits include “Remember My Name,” “Thank God It’s Friday,” “Between the Lines” and his first picture, “Death Wish.”
Born in Pittsburgh, Goldblum studied at New York’s Neighborhood Playhouse. He made his stage debut in the Shakespeare Festival’s musical version Of “Two Gentlemen of Verona” and went to Broadway with it.
It was Goldblum’s performance as the manic pianist in “El Grande de Coca-Cola” that caught the eye of director Robert Altman, who lured him to Hollywood for a part in “California Split.”
His other New York stage work includes “City Sugar” and the Broadway musical “Moony Shapiro’s song book.”
The dynamic central role of Diana in “Into the .Night” marks a major step forward in the fast-flowering career of MICHELLE PFEIFFER, who made a strong impression as Al Pacino’s icy bride in “Scarface,” directed by Brian De Palma.
She then went on to play a medieval princess in the romantic adventure “Ladyhawke,” directed by Richard Donner. ,
Coming to Los Angeles from her native Orange County, Pfeiffer made her film acting debut as the carhop In “Hollywood Knights.” She next played the debutante in “Charlie Chan and the Dragon Queen.”
Between films, she acted in the Los Angeles stage production “Playground in the Fall” and in the television movies “Callie and Son,” “The Children Nobody Wanted” and “Splendor in the Grass.”
Pfeiffer won a nationwide talent search to land the role of the Pink Lady in “Grease 2.”
RICHARD FARNSWORTH plays Jack Caper, the powerful millionaire who, by making a phone call from his sickbed, can make things happen.
Farnsworth became an actor after a long, successful career as a stunt man and action advisor. In his first sizable film role, the dying cowhand in “Comes a Horseman,” he was nominated for an Academy Award and received the National Film Critics Award for Best Supporting Actor.
He went on to win the Canadian equivilant of an Oscar for his portrayal of the legendary bandit Bill Miner in “The Grey Fox.” Farnsworth’s recent movie roles include a big league baseball coach in “The Natural,” Dolly Parton’s father in “Rhinestone” and horse-loving.Melissa Gilbert’s grand- father in “Sylvester.” He has also appeared in “Tom Horn” and “Resurrection.”
While still working as a stunt expert, Farnsworth appeared briefly in “Major Dundee,” “The Duchess and the Dirtwater Fox,” Claude Lelouch’s “Another Man, Another Chance” and as a cavalry officer in Alan Pakula’s “The Stalking Moon.” The latter role led to his being cast in Pakula’s “Comes a Horseman.”
Farnsworth, a thfrd generation Californian, did stunts in over 300 films, including “Red River,” “Cat Ballou” and “Spartacus.”
For the role of the imperiously evil Shaheen in “Into the Night,” Greek actress IRENE PAPAS shot on location in Hollywood for the first time and played one of her few parts with comedic overtones.
Papas is best known to American audiences as the Resistance heroine in “The Guns of Navorone,” the persecuted Greek villager in “Zorba the Greek,” Catherine of Aragon in “Anne of the Thousand Days” and the wife of the assassinated reformer in “Z.”
Among her other American films are “Tribute to a Bad Man,” “The Brotherhood,” Disney’s “The Moon Spinners” and “A Dream of Kings” with her frequent costar Anthony Quinn. Under the direction of Michael Cacoyannis, Papas has starred in the films “Electra,” “The Trojan Women” and “Iphigenia,” as well as “Zorba the Gre4k” and the Athens International Festival stage production of “Anthony and Cleopatra.”
Her additional motion picture credits include “Antigone,” “The Infidel,” “Mohammed, Messenger of God,” “Lion of the Desert,” “Eboli,” “They Still Kill the Old Way,” “La Bambola,” “The Deserter” and the recent “Erendira.”
On Broadway, Papas starred in Frank Gilroy’s. “That Summer, That Fall,” “Medea” and “The Bacchae.” Her other stage work includes “Iphigenia in Aulis,” off-Broadway, and the Greek National Festival production of “Electra.”
KATHRYN HARROLD, who has often been cast as a professional woman, plays the light-headed starlet, Christy, in “Into the Night.”
Harrold has recently starred as the compassionate psychiatrist in “The Sender” Peter Coyote’s girlfriend, a graphic artist, in “Heartbreakers” and a disillusioned veteran of two marriages in the HBO special “The Best Legs in the Eighth Grade.”
Her other feature film credits include the role of the doctor in “Yes, Giorgio” the title character’s wife in “The Pursuit of D.B. Cooper,”
Albert Brook’s girlfriend, a bank officer, in “Modern Romance,” a nurse in “Nightwing” and a schoolteacher in “The Hunter,” opposite Steve McQueen.
Harrold has also acted in several television movies including “Bogie,” in which she played Lauren Bacall, the miniseries “Women in White” and a two-hour “Rockford Files” special, in which she played a blind psychiatrist.
The Virginia-born actress’ theatre credits include “Inside Lulu” and “See America Last,” both off-Broadway; and off-off Broadway’s “An Evening with Thomas Wolfe” and “Tartuffe.”
Director-writer-producer PAUL MARSKY began his career as a comedian and actor. His role as a television producer in “Into the Night” represents his 14th time in front of the feature film cameras and his third time playing a producer.
Mazursky is widely hailed as a creator of warm, personal films about the sadness and humor of the human condition. He is the director of “Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice,” “Alex in Wonderland,” “Blume in Love,” “Harry and Tonto,” “Next Stop, Greenwich Village,” “An Unmarried Woman,” “Willie and Phil,” “The Tempest” and, most recently, “Moscow on the Hudson.”
Mazursky received an Academy Award nomination for the screenplay of “Harry and Tonto” and the Best Screenplay Award from the National Society of Film Critics for “An Unmarried Woman.”
He cowrote and coproduced “I Love You, Alice B. Toklas” and was a writer for Danny Kaye’s television show for four years.
While still a senior at Brooklyn. College, Mazursky made his acting debut with a lead role in an off-Broadway production of “He Who Gets Slapped.” He made his film debut as a psychotic soldier in Stanley Kubrick’s first feature, “Fear and Desire.”
Mazursky went on to play a homosexual convict in the play and movie “Deathwatch,” a juvenile delinquent in his first Hollywood film “The Blackboard Jungle,” the manager of a rock singer (Kris Kristofferson) in “A Star Is Born,” and a larcenous computer programmer in “A Man, A Woman & A Bank.”
In his own films, Mazursky has played a film producer in “Alex in Wonderland,” for which he received a Best Supporting Actor nomination from the New York Film Critics; George Segal’s law partner in “Blume in Love”; a friend of-Jill Clayburgh’s first postdivorce date in “An Unmarried Woman”; and a Broadway producer in “The Tempest.”
Mazursky has also made smaller appearances in Mel Brooks’ “History of the World–Part One,” and his own “Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice,” “Harry and Tonto” and “Moscow on the Hudson.”
In the early phase of his performing career, Mazursky acted in off- Broadway and summer stock productions. He worked as a night club comic in NeW York, Chicago, San Francisco and Los Angeles and played Las Vegas once.
He also acted in live productions during television’s early “Golden Age” and in various Los Angeles repertory theatres.
VERA MILES, who has played loving wives to top stars, usually in westerns or other period pictures, portrays a mercenary spouse in the contemporary thriller-comedy “Into the Night.” She is Joan, the angry and manipulative wife of Jack Caper (Richard Farnsworth), a dying but still- powerful millionaire.
A veteran of nearly 30 feature films, Miles was married to John Wayne in John Ford’s “The Searchers,” to James Stewart in Ford’s “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance,” to Henry Fonda in Alfred Hitchcock’s “The Wrong Man,” and to Bob Hope in “Beau James.”
She played Janet Leigh’s sister in Hitchcock’s “Psycho” (1951) and re- prised the role in “Psycho II” (1983).
Miles has acted in many live television dramas, as well as the mini- series “The Seekers” and the recent television movie “Helen Keller: The Miracle Continues,” as Helen’s mother.
Among her many television credits is the pilot for “Alfred Hitchcock Presents.” She starred in four segments of that popular show and was under personal contract to the director for six years.
Born in Oklahoma and schooled in Kansas, Miles made her stage debut in “Forty Carats” and has since toured in “Same Time, Next Year,” “The Gingerbread Lady,” “Ping Pong” and the world premiere production of George Tibble’s “Turn of the Worm,” among others.
Except for the small part of a French writer in his film “Charlotte” (1976), ROGER VADIM’S role as Monsieur Melville in “Into the Night” marks his first acting since he was a teenager in the French theatre.
The internationally renown French director’s first film was “And God Created Woman.” It became the first all-French production to be a hit in general release in the U.S. and made an international star and sex symbol of Brigitte Bardot.
Vadim went on to direct several more Bardot pictures and another popular and controversially erotic work, “Les Liaisons Dangereuses,” starring Jeanne Moreau and Gerard Phillippe. Vadim’s “No Sun in Venice” was a prize winner at the Venice and Berlin film festivals.
Vadim directed Annette Stroyberg in “Blood and Roses” and Catherine Deneuve in “Vice and Virtue.” He directed Jane Fonda in “Barbarella,” “La Curee,” (“The Game is Over”) and “La Ronde” (“Circle of Love”).
Among his later works, Vadim directed “Pretty Maids All in a Row,” starring Rock Hudson and Angie Dickenson, and “The Beauty and the Beast” for cable television’s “Fairie Tale Theatre,” starring Susan Sarandon and Klaus Kinski.
Vadim is currently developing an ’80s version of “And God Created Woman,” and recently wrote the novel “The Hungry Angel.”
Vadim studied acting under Charles Dullin and from ages 15-19 per- formed in Paris stage productions of “‘Tis Pity She’s A Whore” and various French classics.
At 18, he was one of Europe’s youngest screenwriters. He apprenticed in filmmaking under director Marc Allegret.
Vadim was a reporter for Paris-Match Magazine and was the last journalist to leave Dien Bien Fu during the historic battle that marked the end of France’s presence in Indochina. .
