Strong and Moving!

Simply A Masterpiece

Let's be realistic.

It's no definitive masterpiece but it's damn close.

A young British heiress (Patricia Franklin) is kidnapped at an airport in Paris in this rather tough existentialist crime drama featuring Marlon Brando as the nominal leader of the gang of morally flexible criminals that include his drug addicted girlfriend played by Rita Moreno, her pickpocket brother (Jess Hahn) and Richard Boone at his most menacing as a pimp named Leer. They hold her in an isolated house on a desolate looking beach but discover a French police officer who likes to fish coincidentally happens to live nearby. The entire affair is heavy going with a group who thinks they can pull off this caper and avoid the underlying violence. Interesting tension develops between bad Boone and not-so-bad Brando, with Jess Hahn sort of stealing the show as a kind of non- violent pickpocket desperate just to get the money. In addition it's a pretty far way from where Rita Moreno was in West Side Story.

This is a noirish film about a kidnapping that goes wrong. I have to assume the filmmakers intended it to be some kind of postmodern and ironic commentary on the genre and the subject matter. I have to assume that because judged on its own merits, The Night of the Following Day is a hideously awkward and amateurish movie.A young girl (Pamela Franklin) flies into France and is almost immediately abducted by a band of 4 seasoned criminals. Wally (Jess Hahn) is a fat loser who's spearheaded the kidnapping as his final grasp at crime's brass ring. Bud (Marlon Brando) is a buff, beatnik hipster who wears a black turtleneck. Vi (Rita Moreno) is Wally's sister, Bud's woman and a junkie. Leer (Richard Boone) is the outsider brought into to the group for this job who quickly proves to be a vile and violent degenerate. They hold up at a French beach house with the girl and try to execute an overly complicated plan to get away with the ransom money from her rich father, all the while avoiding the local cop (Gerard Buhr) who keeps running into the kidnappers by unknowing chance. Things go wrong, there's a double cross and most of what you'd expect in this sort of story happens.I fervently hope these filmmakers and these actors were trying to do something different and unusual with The Night of the Following Day. I would like to think that there was some cultural or artistic point to the creative decisions they made. If there wasn't, then this is one of the most poorly made movies I've ever watched. It's even more graceless and anomalous than the cheap, videotape crap churned out since 1990.There are looooong stretches where there is no dialog and nothing interesting happening on screen. What dialog there is sounds like the first take of a bad improv session. Scenes are staged and shot like co-writer/director Hubert Cornfield's sole previous experience in show business was directing pre-school Christmas plays. There's one scene that goes on for a full minute where the camera is focused on the back of Marlon Brando's head. There's no dialog. Nothing's going on. It's just the back of Brando's head on screen for a full minute. The film ends with an epilogue that feels more like an editing mistake than anything intentional.I'm perplexed by this movie. It appears to be so thoroughly rotten and inexplicably crafted that I wonder if I'm not missing something. Was The Night of the Following Day responding to or referencing something in its own era that I don't appreciate or comprehend? Was the cast and crew all high when they were making this? Did someone kidnap Cornfield's or Brando's children and force them to make this film? I really want there to be some explanation for how dreadful this thing appears to be, because the alternative is just too depressing.

Among the more obscure works in Brando's filmography is this moody, almost-surreal kidnapping drama. Brando plays a participant in the scheme to capture young heiress Franklin and hold her for ransom. Other kidnappers include tough Boone, weak mastermind Hahn and his sister, the depressed Moreno. These four take Franklin to a desolate beach house in France where she's kept in an upstairs room (part of her torment apparently being that she must sleep on the world's ugliest bedspread and under a window with the world's ugliest matching drapes!) With the sadistic Boone continuously threatening to do the girl harm and with Moreno feeling jealous towards her, Franklin tries to turn to Brando for some protection. Soon, the human failings of the captors begin to take their toll on the operation with Boone becoming greedy, Moreno sinking into drug-induced stupor and Brando accusing Hahn of failing to come up with a sure enough plan. All the while, local policeman Buhr keeps popping up at the most inopportune times until the whole enterprise begins to fray at the edges. Brando, who, according to the director, was practically impossible to deal with on this film, looks terrific in a blonde wig with a tan and a trim waistline. He is mostly unchallenged by the script, but does have one sizable improvisation scene. Boone is intimidating and delivers a solid performance. Moreno is almost the last person one would think of when casting a character called "Blonde", but she digs deep for an emotionally-charged portrayal with many dimensions. Director Cornfield considered her the finest actress he ever worked with and heaped praise on her work. She had had a 10 year affair with Brando close to a decade beforehand, which ended very badly, and she surely used this to color her performance. Franklin is given fairly little to do besides fret about her capture and scream occasionally. Her part may have been more meaningful had the original plot line gone through which included a love scene with Brando, but he nixed it, changing the focus of the story (much to Cornfield's dismay.) None of the characters, which are given labels instead of names, have much of a chance to become fully realized, but perhaps they aren't even meant to be when the twist ending is taken into account. It's notable that Hahn's character is called "Friendly" in the credits, but Brando refers to him as "Wally", perhaps in tribute to the man in Brando's life who meant more than any other, Wally Cox. Brando's character, credited as "Chauffeur" is called "Bud" on screen, which was Brando's real-life nickname. Character actor Lettieri (of "The Godfather" and "The Getaway") served as a producer on this film and has a small role as a hired pilot for the getaway. The film is unusual, at times practically wordless, and isn't completely satisfying, but it has an interesting style and features some interesting visuals and scenes. Unconventional would be a good word to describe it. Fans of Brando mustn't miss it if for no other reason than the fact that he looks so good at this stage. Keep an eye out, however, for the bomb-building scene in which Brando's graceful hands are replaced by a double with hairy, freckled, stubby, dirty, chubby, aged fingers!

I just saw this DVD for the first time. I couldn't believe that in 1968 at age 44 that Marlon Brando was in such outstanding shape. He was fit and trim and blonde. His acting was unbelievable. In one particular scene with Jess Hahn, Brando is at his best. This "kidnap" film has a strong supporting cast which gives equally impressive performances. Richard Boone gives a very creepy performance as a sadistic psycho. He reminds me a lot of Alan Arkin's role in Wait Until Dark. Jess Hahn is great as the pot-bellied brother of Rita Moreno. The Night Before The Following Day is one of Marlon Brando's top 10 acting roles.