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.
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.