Rediscover ‘Night of the Juggler,’ a Gritty, High-Octane Time Capsule of 1970s New York City
Apropos of its title, Night of the Juggler tosses a multitude of themes into the air and deftly keeps each one afloat and in motion from start to finish. The film paints a picture of class warfare, racial tension, and police corruption in equal strokes, but the heart of the story is a father’s love for his daughter. Weaving these strands together, director Robert Butler constructs a tapestry of grimy, crime-ridden, morally bankrupt late-’70s New York City that rivals better-known films like Taxi Driver and delivers an epic chase scene that keeps up with the likes of The French Connection. Now available on 4K UHD and streaming, it’s time to rediscover Night of the Juggler.
Set amid a fraught period when crime rates were high, class divides were growing, and anxiety permeated the city, the film opens with the latest in a string of bomb threats by Puerto Rican nationalist group Fuerzas Armadas de Liberación Nacional, immediately capturing a sense of time, place, and uneasiness. But for former NYPD officer Sean Boyd (James Brolin), it’s his daughter Kathy’s (Abby Bluestone) 13th birthday and the only thing on his mind is the ballet he’s taking her to that evening. Those plans get derailed, however, when Kathy gets mistakenly kidnapped by Gus Soltic (Cliff Gorman), a psychotic loner who thinks she’s the daughter of a wealthy real estate developer responsible for the decline of his neighborhood. What ensues is an intense race against time that has Boyd bulldozing his way through New York City and mowing down multiple adversaries in order to save his little girl.
Within 20 minutes, viewers are treated to one of the most elaborate and well-choreographed chase scenes in film history—a 10-minute sequence that feels like a mini tour of Manhattan guided by a very distraught Brolin. We begin in picturesque Central Park, where the abduction takes place; then we join Boyd in the back of a classic yellow cab, driven by a scene-stealing Mandy Patinkin; next we get a taste of the local experience as we jump the turnstile and weave through a crowded subway car; and finally we’re back on foot, zipping past the now-shuttered Times Square porn shops that defined the seedy underbelly of a bygone era. And we haven’t even ventured into the other boroughs yet.
The film also takes us to the Bronx, where entire neighborhoods have been deliberately left to decay, a real-life practice that was used by developers in the ‘70s that enabled them to gobble up cheap land for future redevelopment. After watching his beloved South Bronx neighborhood fall to ruins, Soltic has an axe to grind with the tycoon who’s responsible, demanding that he fork over $1 million or his daughter gets turned into “chunks of meat.” We almost feel sorry for him, until he starts filling his diatribe with racist slurs. But it’s an authentic portrayal of the racial tensions that arise out of capitalist machinations.
While Soltic is Boyd’s main adversary, he’s not the only one. As Boyd pursues his daughter’s kidnapper through the city, he’s being chased by Otis Barnes (Dan Hedaya), a disgruntled ex-sergeant who was fired from the force after Boyd ratted him out for corrupt policing. Clearly out for blood, Barnes begins blasting Boyd with a shotgun in broad daylight, through the busy streets of Midtown, unconcerned with the countless mass casualties he might rack up. It may feel farfetched, but the film is making a clear statement on the severity of retaliation for breaking the blue wall of silence.
At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter how much Boyd has working against him. Nothing will stop him from getting his daughter back—not Soltic, not Barnes, not even the mean streets of New York. And if it’s any consolation, he does have a few allies, including Lieutenant Tonelli (played by a gruffly charismatic Richard Castellano), the ying to Barnes's bad-cop yang. It’s Tonelli who delivers the line that encapsulates the entire film, and maybe even the entire era, so well: “I got a feeling it’s gonna be another goddamn New York Day.”
You can now own a new 4K restoration of Night of the Juggler and stream it on Kino Film Collection.
Night of the Juggler (1980)
The grit and intensity of late-1970s New York City is depicted in stark detail in this relentlessly action-packed cult classic. Twenty-four hours of nerve-jangling tension and suspense begin when a twisted psychotic (Cliff Gorman, Cops and Robbers, All That Jazz) kidnaps a teenaged girl, mistaking her for the daughter of a wealthy real estate developer. Her determined father (James Brolin, The Car, The Amityville Horror), a hard-hitting ex-cop, doggedly pursues them through New York’s seamy streets, decaying, burned-out Bronx tenements, and the grimy subterranean corridors beneath the city itself.
