The Night Visitor

Max von Sydow in dishabille 

Laslo Benedek's The Night Visitor, from 1971, is a true oddity that never finds its footing as a suspense film. Filmed in English with chilly Jutland as the setting, the cast is split between Scandinavians and Brits. Max von Sydow portrays an inmate in an asylum who escapes nightly seeking revenge on those who framed him for murder. Chief among those is his sister, played by Liv Ullmann and her husband portrayed by Per Oscarsson. Trevor Howard, who appears hungover throughout the film, plays a police inspector investigating von Sydow's crimes. Since this is more of a whydunnit than a whodunnit, psychologically attuned direction is required. Benedek is a a serviceable realist, at best, and the characterizations wither within the frame. Intriguing art direction is largely wasted.

The performances are all over the map. Oscarsson is awful; an ersatz Ibsen husband. Ullmann never seems at ease in English, though she has more to sink her teeth into here than in Forty Carats or Lost Horizon. Rupert Davies (who was a fine Count Rostov for the BBC) and Andrew Keir offer nice character turns. It is all Max von Sydow's show, however. After playing mostly stoic sufferers for Bergman and such wild and crazy guys such as Karl Oskar and Jesus, Von Sydow seems liberated here playing a psychopath. The role gives him a chance to display his talents as a physical actor and he races around Denmark in his tighty whities with aplomb. Von Sydow had the intelligence to know when he was playing in pulp and accordingly throws the pit a hint of camp and bravura. As in Flash Gordon, The Exorcist, Needful Things and Dreamscape, Von Sydow often redeems films that verge on trash and does so in The Night Visitor.