La nuit du lendemain

The Night Before The Following Day is one of Marlon Brando's most over-looked films. Looking as fit and trim as he was in Streetcar Named Desire, Brando gives an emotionally charged performance as Bud (Brando's nickname in real life!), the leader of a gang of ruthless kidnappers. Brando's acting is at its best in an amazing scene in which he has an intense conversation with Jess Hahn about his misgivings regarding the success of their kidnapping.

The supporting cast is remarkable. Richard Boone as a sadistic murderer, gives his finest career performance. His villain is the most chilling in movie-screen history. Jess Hahn, as hard-luck Wally, steals the show. He has the look and build of a man who has been dealt the worst of bad luck. Rita Moreno as Wally's drug-addicted sister and Brando's girl-friend, is at her rawest. And a young Pamela Franklin as the kidnap victim shines in a truly abusive role.

Raw acting, graphic brutality, realistic action, a surprise ending, and out-standing acting performances makes The Night Before The Following Day a Marlon Brando classic.

Although the acting is by all means above average, this movie suffers from lack of tension and suspense.The characters' actions are sometimes incomprehensible and the ending is too disappointing. Was this kind of ending supposed to be a novelty back in 1969? I don't think so.... Anyway, the Night of the following day is no garbage but it's no good either.

5

This picture is worth time to see, but only if you've willing to invest the time to put in the effort to pay close attention. It is not a good choice as a movie to keep on in the background. The kidnapping goes wrong almost immediately, not from law enforcement personnel, but from within. We see the changing relationships between the kidnappers as the hours with their victim go on.

Added note: Try to rent the video. When NBC showed the movie on commercial television, the network added additional scenes featuring the brother of the victim working a police inspector. These scenes are not outtakes from the original movie that NBC restored, but new scenes that NBC filmed and added to make clearer the kidnappers' fate. They are unnecessary and rather insulting to the audience that the network felt they needed to "improve" the movie.

Seldom has a movie so wildly vacillated between being suspenseful and being irritating. It's about a kidnapping which goes wrong. In it, a chauffeur in Paris with a criminal record (Marlon Brando) reluctantly agrees to take part in the kidnapping for ransom of a young British heiress (Pamela Franklin), which is being masterminded by his good friend, a washed-up pickpocket (Jess Hahn). The girl will be held hostage at the English Channel home of a heroin-addicted stewardess (Rita Moreno), who is both Hahn's sister and Brando's girlfriend. Added to this motley group is a sadistic pimp (Richard Boone), whom Hahn brought in but Brando doesn't trust. The kidnapping goes well enough, but complications set in. A neighbor of the beach house is a French policeman. But even more importantly, the characters become increasingly mistrustful of each other while the captive is menaced by Boone, who is clearly a psychopathic predator. Of course, there is the inevitable climax when things go wrong at the last minute. The film alternates between crime drama and psychological drama, with a lot of chat and only a few action scenes. The talented actors and the nice scenery help make the film watchable until the end, in spite of the pretentious script. But then the entire story is undercut by one of the most stupid endings one could imagine, which could not possibly be more out of place. I had only grudgingly sat through this film because of the cast, only to have the rug yanked out from under me. It left me feeling betrayed.

The movie wanders through a small range of unusual characters, following the happenings that occur to them during a two days period, as fleetingly as a feather follows it's path led by the wind. This is the factor that helps 'The Night Of The Following Day' to deliver the refreshing quality that contrasts the morbid atmosphere the movie slowly builds so perfectly.

A contradictory statement? May be... yet, since the movie has such a slow pacing, the drama that surrounds it becomes much more obvious. And suspense is drama. Suspense is conflict.

A girl is kidnapped by an odd group of professional criminals - a man whose tough ways curtail his vulnerability, his stewardess girlfriend who is struggling against a serious drug addiction, her slow minded brother, and a sadistic lunatic.

During two days, we analyze through Hubert Cornfield's almost Bergmanesque eyes, each desperate character, and how they manage to bring up the worst in each other. Their emerging weaknesses manage to sabotage the plan, as the creeping tension begins to take over the viewer.

The ending is coherent. And soon after, you'll be able to see a beautiful representation of the beauty of that human being that the world had just lost. It's not a typical 'crime does not pay' ending. It's just their doomed fate - from the moment we begin to perceive those threatening hoodlums as fragile, unreasonable human beings, we know that the plan will not work.

This is a masterpiece, in every way. Music, Cinematography, Directing, Acting, and Specially, Pacing combine themselves flawlessly in order to build an allegory of desperate souls destroying themselves when face to face with an abyss.

Not for the ones who enjoy snappy paced flicks. This is for the one willing to think a tad more, and be rewarded greatly for their effort. :)