A COLD NIGHT'S DEATH

Robert Culp and Eli Wallach

A COLD NIGHT'S DEATH (1973 telefilm). Director: Jerrold Freedman.

A man named Vogel is conducting high altitude tests on primates for the space program at the Tower Mountain research station. When he begins sending messages that appear to be gibberish, Frank Enari (Eli Wallach) and Robert Jones (Robert Culp) -- accompanied by another test chimp -- are sent to investigate. They find Vogel frozen to death with a look of horror on his face, but they can't understand how he wound up in this condition when he could have easily gotten out of the frigid room. Other strange things begin to happen, creating an atmosphere of suspicion and paranoia among the two arguing men. Jones seems to have figured out what may be going on, but Enari can't accept it, and it's a question of just who is experimenting on whom. A Cold Night's Death is a very memorable telefilm with two excellent performances by Wallach [The Hoax] and Culp [Calendar Girl Murders] and a decided feeling of claustrophobia and creepiness. Christopher Knopf, who co-wrote the screenplay for 20 Million Miles to Earth, has fashioned a unique story that is both suspenseful and harrowing, and it also has a very clever and darkly amusing wind-up. Freedman, whose directorial assignments were mostly for television, does a good job building tension. Michael C. Gwynne has a small part as a helicopter pilot at the beginning and is effective.

Verdict: Monkey see, monkey do. ***1/2.