The Night of the Following Day (1969)

Boring

It isn't all that great, actually. Really cheesy and very predicable of how certain scenes are gonna turn play out. However, I guess that's the charm of it all, because I would consider this one of my guilty pleasures.

I didn’t really have many expectations going into the movie (good or bad), but I actually really enjoyed it. I really liked the characters and the banter between them.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

Released in 1968, "The Night of the Following Day" is a realistic crime drama featuring Brando as one of four professional criminals who kidnap a girl (a teenage Pamela Franklin) and hold up at a beach house in France. Richard Boone stars as the fiendish member, while Jess Hahn plays a likable loser, the brother of the pathetically drug addicted Rita Moreno.At the time of this picture Brando was 44 years old and never looked better physically -- very trim and blond. Brando didn't start getting fat until the later-70's when he was well into his 50's. In other words, people need to quit envisioning Brando as some fat dude; most of his life he wasn't. Most men in their mid-40's would kill to look as good as Brando did at the this age.BOTTOM LINE: Coming from the mid-60s when realism was fashionable this crime thriller is more of a crime drama, but suspense slowly builds to a compelling final act, which shows that crime doesn't pay, but people are redeemable if they qualify. There's also an unexpected twist that was fresh at the time, but is now eye-rolling.The film was shot during generally cloudy conditions in France and runs a short but sweet 93 minutes.GRADE: B-

The film begins with a young lady being kidnapped by two men (Marlon Brando and Richard Boone). It's an oddly muted kidnapping, as you really don't hear any dialog until about 12 minutes into the film. Then, at first, Boone appears like a pretty nice kidnapper--though later, he seems to be a bit of a sadist. In addition, Brando's girlfriend (Rita Moreno) is caught by him getting stoned. When Brando sees these two problems, he wants out--he wants to release the girl and forget about everything. However, his friend is able to convince him to stick it out--against his better judgment.It's amazing watching this film, as apart from a VERY emotive scene involving Brando having what appears to be a temper tantrum, the folks in the film seem as if they are all on an painkillers--LOTS of them. Too subdued and too slow-paced, this is a hard film to like. Even with the nice ending (and it was pretty tense), the film was STILL very emotionally subdued. Overall, not a bad movie but it EASILY could have been so much better. The film needs life. And, its ending was one of the WORST I've seen in a long time, and I watch A LOT of films.

A group of criminals kidnap a young girl to extort money from her rich father. While this sounded promising, it was an insufferably dull film, easily the worst I've seen of Marlon Brando's at this point. It's also flatly directed with poor characters and dumb dialog, some of it spoken unconvincingly even by Brando himself, "man", and it comes off as almost laughable! The first half contains meaningless squabbles between the gang, and then we get into other situations with little point to them. The music is bad too, and just when you thought it couldn't get worse, the lousy ending seals the deal shut.0 out of ****

Among Marlon Brando's brilliant filmography,"night of the following day" remains one of his most mysterious .I saw the movie twice (it was a continuous programme) when it was theatrically released and since,I have never talked about it with anybody afterward.Yesterday ,when I finally saw it again after all those years,I realized I totally missed the point the first time:I had not understood the ending.It was a time unexpected twists were not that much common .Of course Fritz Lang's "Woman in the window" had already been made but I hardly knew Lang's name.But if the ending eluded me ,blame it on the script too.To make sense,the whole story should have been seen through Pamela Franklin's eyes!Her part is underwritten ,she hasn't even got a name.Anyway,Brando's smile on the last picture is really spooky and makes me think of many films of today.Cornfield's main asset is the perfection of his cast:apart from the two names I mention above,Richard Boone,Jess Hahn and Rita Moreno are first-class actors.Hats off to the latter who manages quite well in French: all the scenes with the cop are suspenseful ("Je vous ai fait peur?"=Did I scare you?)Cornfield's use of France is devoid of the usual clichés:no accordion tune,no Eiffel Tower,and,on the Champ Elysées ,we can't even see the Arc of Triumph.On the other hand,his depiction of the little bistros (French pubs) is accurate and the (Normandy?) beach where most of the action takes place is a good location.The house is wrapped in silence disturbed only by the sea.There's something bizarre which almost explains the eerie ending.This story of kidnapping has been told and told and told.And however Hubert Cornfield 's movie is unlike all the other ones.Marlon Brando assumes an indifferent air,which increases the strange atmosphere .Towards the ending,everything is happening at once and we sometimes wonder whether the criminals' plans are that much good (in the bistro,they make blunder after another).French director Robert Hossein certainly appreciated Cornfield's movie since he made "Point de chute" starring singer Johnny Hallyday which bore more than a distant resemblance to "night of...".Like Franklin,the victim has no name either !Hubert Cornfield infatuation with France took the form of a ...French movie in 1976 "les Grands Moyens" from an Exbrayat's novel which sank without a trace.