The Midnight Man 1974

Jim Slade, [Burt Lancaster], a former Chicago policeman, is paroled from prison after serving time for shooting his wife’s lover in their bed. He goes to live with his married friends Quartz Willinger [Cameron Mitchell] and Judy Willinger [Joan Lorring] in a small town, taking a job as a night watchman at a local college.

A college student is murdered, and local Sheriff Casey [Harris Yulin] tries to pin the crime on a creepy janitor who spouts biblical revelation while hiding pornography. Slade pursues an unauthorized investigation of his own.

Natalie [Catherine Bach], the murdered student, is the daughter of Senator Clayborne [Morgan Woodward], who receives blackmail letters related to tapes of her confession to a psychiatric counselor that she had an incestuous relationship with her father. Slade questions possible suspects, including the senator, Natalie’s estranged boyfriend Arthur King [Bill Lancaster] (who declares to Slade that the generation gap

> “The generation gap just got a little wider.”

), psychology professor Dean Collins [Harold N. Cooledge Jr.] and a nerdy student whose taped psychiatric rant was also stolen.

All the while, Slade is warned against overstepping his authority as a mere night watchman, no longer a cop, by his parole officer Linda Thorpe [Susan Clark] and by Quartz. A brief affair between Slade and Thorpe begins. A family of thugs led by a Ma Barker-type mother arrives, and they are revealed to be agents paid by some corrupt members of the sheriff’s department to do their dirty work.

Slade realizes that the parole officer and Quartz are the perpetrators of the murder, because only Quartz could have known a certain critical clue involved in the cover-up. Sheriff Casey arrests Quartz. As they depart, Slade confronts Thorpe, who produces the stolen tapes that are hidden in her freezer.

The sheriff offers Slade an apology and a job even though Slade cannot hold a position with the law as a convicted felon.