THE NIGHT OF THE FOLLOWING DAY (1968, directed by Hubert Cornfield)

This is a little-known Marlon Brando film that has been on my list to view for a long time. While it is available to purchase, it is outrageously priced. When it goes down in price, as most films tend to do, I will buy it. In the meantime, it is another terrific film you can rent from the Video Library.

THE NIGHT OF THE FOLLOWING DAY involves a pretty young heiress (played by Pamela Franklin) who is kidnapped following a flight back home to Paris. The kidnappers are led by Marlon Brando, still very handsome—in fact this might be his last film where he actually looks in good shape. One of my favourite actors, Richard Boone, plays one of Brando’s cronies, a particularly sadistic fellow who ultimately clashes with Brando in the film’s climax. Rita Moreno is the other star in the kidnapping gang.

The tension between the gang members and the collection of the ransom provide the action of the film. While it meanders a bit from time to time (the first fifteen minutes seemed to be too leisurely paced for my tastes) I found it to be an effective character study of desperate people trying to work together towards an albeit unpleasant end.

The isolated beach house where Ms. Franklin is held hostage makes a nice metaphor for the isolation and loneliness of these criminal outcasts. The surrounding sea and the bleak, overcast sky and crashing waves help tremendously in establishing and maintaining the mood of the film.

Like most character studies, the film only works as well as its characters. Brando and Boone are both brilliant actors who command the viewers’ attention unlike many stars today. Brando used to have a charm about him before he became obese and his disdain for acting became so well known. Although he is a bad guy here he is still sort of a good guy. He wants to protect Ms. Franklin from Boone’s lecherous inclinations.

And Richard Boone was a greatly underrated performer. Not only was he a brilliant good guy in HAVE GUN, WILL TRAVEL, he was a capable and much sought-after heavy in films concurrently with, and subsequently from, his hit TV show. He was able to play menace better than just about anyone else. With his growly voice and pock-marked face he intimidates even when he does nothing. Boone’s acting style is broad (though real) and he injects such colour into his roles, using artful doses of sardonic humour, unexpected bursts of laughter and quiet, almost gentlemanly manners. He’s every bit as good as Brando.

The director/writer, Hubert Cornfield, had already given us such great films as PRESSURE POINT and PLUNDER ROAD when he undertook THE NIGHT OF THE FOLLOWING DAY. He directs with a sure understanding of film noir, and although the film is in colour, he gives us a hazy, almost hallucinatory look which perhaps sets up the suggestion at the end of the film that it has all been a nightmare. (This suggestion, by the way, feels like a cheat, although it does not ruin the film—and no, revealing this does not spoil the real ending—which is the fate of the characters!).

Cornfield also incorporates a number of shots where characters address the camera rather than having their eyeline camera right or left, which is the norm in pov (point of view) shots. This draws you into the action for the obvious reason that it is as if the characters are speaking to you.

The climax of the film is well played out and very tense. I always find it a mark of a good film if the filmmaker can manipulate me to care about the people being killed or cause me to feel sympathy for a bad guy.

The film was not well received when it opened and this led to minor distribution. It was one of the nails in Brando’s acting coffin which led to the revelation over his acting resurrection a few years later in THE GODFATHER.

True to noir style, there is an unpleasant quality about this film. The closest we get to a real good guy is an inquisitive French policeman who is attracted to Rita Moreno’s character. While he appears a few times and appears suspicious of Ms. Moreno and her cohorts, his character is not allowed to fully develop.

Indeed the film was rated R back in ’68, which is partially due to the violent nature of the story. However much of the sadism is implied rather than shown. It is again testimony to Boone’s superb acting and the director’s sense of taste and restraint that we have a film that continues to seem ‘adult’ and tense more than thirty years later, while at the same time its content is very tame, compared to contemporary (lack of) standards.

As a pre-GODFATHER Brando fan, (I own all his films from this period except this one) I heartily recommend it. As a Richard Boone fan, it is a must-see. As a thriller/crime fan it is pretty good.

Thanks again to our friends at the Video Library for providing this fine film for fans like me to view, if not to own. Come on, MCA, lower the price!

Jon Ted Wynne