Color of Night (1994)

Plot of Color of Night: Bill Capa, a psychiatrist, is traumatised when a patient jumps out of his 50th floor office window, and is taken in by a friend Bob Moore, also a psychiatrist and successful author with a luxury lifestyle in LA. Bob has a Monday therapy group and gets Bill to sit in. They all have problems but seem reluctant to talk about them, particularly Richie, a teenage boy, always clad in bulky fatigues. Within days Bob is brutally murdered and Lt Martinez, investigating, persuades Bill to continue with the therapy group, since he believes that one of them is the murderer. While out in Bob’s Mercedes sport car, Bill is rear ended by an attractive young woman, and in no time she has become his lover. Meanwhile Richie’s brother has met Bill and asked him to discard Richie from the group. Bill believes that there is a solution to the case with Dr Niedelmeyer, who had been Richie’s child analyst, and meanwhile all the members of the group apart from Richie seem to have found a sexual partner.  When Casey, another of the group is murdered, Bill’s card seems to be marked.

Content: This film is billed as an erotic thriller, so there is an expectation of nudity and sex, and sure enough there is a lot of it. We are with Bill, when his patient, who we have already see sucking on the barrel of a revolver, jumps out of the window. He joins Bob in his luxury pad and enjoys himself until Bob is stabbed by an unknown person. Bill keeps the therapy group going and is interviewed by Lt Martinez, and well as socialising with him, in some of the LA nightspots. At one point Bill, in the Merc, is chased by a Pontiac Firebird with dark windows, but manages to escape. The therapy sessions take place. The young woman seems to pursue Bill, spending most of their time together naked. Bill manages to get to Dr Niedelmeyer’s wife who reveals that he had been stabbed to death.

A View: Most of the critics were very sniffy about this outing, except for the writer for the New York Times who gave it five stars, and while it was not great at the box office it was a home viewing hit. The clue to the whole film may rest with Lt Martinez’s moustache, which appears to be not only fake, but poorly applied. If you accept that it is a film which does not take itself too seriously it is worth a watch. It’s a bit like Agatha Christie with sex. I have watched a whole lot of dross for the benefit of this website, and Color of Night was a breath of fresh air. So maybe a watch, but not with your granny.

Fun Fact: This film was nominated in every category of the Razzies and won Worst Film. The director apparently keeps the award in his bathroom.