Mon 19 Apr 2010
A Movie Review by Dan Stumpf: THE NIGHT OF THE FOLLOWING DAY (1968).
Posted by Steve under Crime Films , Reviews[6] Comments
THE NIGHT OF THE FOLLOWING DAY. Universal, 1968. Marlon Brando, Richard Boone, Rita Moreno, Pamela Franklin, Jess Hahn. Based on a novel by Lionel White. Co-screenwriter & director: Hubert Cornfield. Co-director (uncredited): Richard Boone.
After Gunn and P. J., this latest excursion back into my tawdry youth ended with The Night of the Following Day, co-written and directed, mostly, by Hubert Cornfield, based on The Snatchers, a Gold Medal paperback novel by Lionel White.
The film was originally intended to star Richard Boone, but Marlon Brando, whose career was in eclipse at the time, owed Universal a movie, and Cornfield, who had done a few interesting B-films, jumped at the chance — only to have Brando bully him around the set and ultimately off the picture, which was finished by Richard Boone.
Whoever’s responsible, this is a unique, moody and suspenseful piece, with sparse dialogue that sounds largely improvised around a plot that keeps falling apart. A young heiress is kidnapped by a very businesslike band of outsiders that includes Brando, Rita Moreno, Jess Hahn and Richard Boone.
The professionalism quickly dissipates, though, when it develops that Moreno has a drug habit, Boone enjoys hurting their captive, and Hahn suffers from delusions of competence, leaving Brando to try to hold things together through a slow build-up to an impressively violent resolution.
Slow-moving, I’ll grant you, but Night has an atmosphere of growing nastiness that keeps one watching. Performances are refreshingly natural throughout, and the plot twists itself nicely.
All of which is very nearly spoiled by one of the lousiest endings ever committed on film, but like most endings, this one comes late in the film, after some very stylish action and a lot of suspense.
April 19th, 2010 at 11:14 pm
It’s always nice when the finale comes near the end of the film. I hate when they come in the middle. Though this one would have been better if they had left it off altogether.
But seriously this one is a film I remembered long after I saw it, and snatched it up when it came out on DVD. It’s annoying and at the same time fascinating, and like DEAD HEAT ON A MERRY-GO-ROUND very much a film of its time.
I haven’t read the White novel, but most of his books were damn good, so I have to assume this could have been much better if it had been more faithful.
Boone essays another of his great sadists, Moreno and Franklyn make what could be stereotypes interesting, and Brando for once in this time period seems to be in the same movie as the rest of the cast.
This is one of those films that is more interesting than actually good, but that is by no means a knock of it. But that ‘clever’ ending is the same thing that ruins another earlier thriller INTERRUPTED JOURNEY with Richard Todd and Valerie Thompson and a good little Brit B with Lloyd Bridges, THE LIMPING MAN. Why Hollywood keeps doing this ending when it hasn’t worked again since Fritz Lang’s WOMAN IN THE WINDOW is a mystery Sherlock Holmes couldn’t solve (and considering the ending it wouldn’t have mattered if he did). And even then it took the skill of one of the great directors and Edward G. Robinson to pull it off.
It’s an ending that works in comedy, fantasy, and romance much better than suspense.
April 20th, 2010 at 6:17 am
About the ending of WOMAN IN THE WINDOW: It works there, mainly due to Fritz Lang’s artistry. Note that when the “surprise” finale takes place, there is a transition from one scene to another that is accomplished without cutting–think about it: we go right one from scene to the next without cutting.
A friend of mine once asked Lang how he did this, but the aged director simply smiled and refused to answer. Perhaps he didn’t remember.
April 20th, 2010 at 3:17 pm
While I’ve always thought Richard Boone was great in HAVE GUN WILL TRAVEL, perhaps my favorite TV western of all time, he was even better as a villain.
He could make the viewer hate him within the first ten seconds he’d be on the screen. Absolutely hate him.
I’ve not seen NIGHT OF THE FOLLOWING DAY, not yet, that is, but it sounds as though he outdoes himself in this one.
April 20th, 2010 at 9:32 pm
I really enjoyed this film, when seen decades ago.
Cornfield made some good B movies, too, early in his career.
April 21st, 2010 at 2:44 am
Boone was the rare villain that you just loathed — and were glad you didn’t have to meet, and at the same time you didn’t want him killed until the end of the film because he was so much fun on screen. Aside from this and THE KREMLIN LETTERS his memorable screen villains include BIG JAKE, VICKI, THE SIEGE OF RED RIVER, THE MAN WITHOUT A STAR, ROBBER’S ROOST TEN WANTED MEN, CITY OF BAD MEN, THE TALL T (perhaps Boone’s richest villain), and his dark ‘hero’ in RIO CONCHOS. And he was a memorable Pontius Pilate in THE ROBE, where he and Victor Mature act the mostly British cast off the screen.
September 14th, 2011 at 2:19 pm
The stories of conflict between Cornfield and Brando are evident in parts when Brando allows his normally spot-on method approach to acting to erupt over the top. I sensed that this was due to frustration with his director. Sad. The ending leaves much to be desired though there is something to be said of the theory that the ending were flashback thoughts of the girl as she is dying. It’s just sad that the director didn’t have enough “A” movie chops to pull it off. Richard Boone is near perfection as one of the more creepy sadistic villains I have seen on the screen. All that said,The Morning After the Night Before is a probably worth seeing movie. Excellent cast and story but they seemed too much for Director Cornfield.