This is reaching back several months to a thread about Lionel
White's THE SNATCHERS and the French movie made from it "The
Night of the Following Day" (1969). I've now watched the
movie and wanted to attach my comments to those below by Ed
Gorman because they added to my insight.
The movie is something of a mess, not surprising considering
the war that went on behind the scenes between the director
Hubert Cornfield and Marlon Brando. From Cornfield's
commentary track he says Brando spiked a love scene between
his character and the kidnap victim and this changed the
whole plot. We also learn that Brando had an alternate ending
that he wanted used.
The movie features several excellent acting perfomances that
are worth the price of admission. Rita Moreno carries away
top honors with several wonderful scenes but all of the cast
did well.
The later stages of the film are painfully convoluted and the
intended ending was silly then and even more so now after
several others have tried the same flip-gimmick. Brando's
suggested alternative ending, as explained by the director
Cornfield (who hated it), would have been an
improvement.
I especially wanted to include Ed's commentary on Cornfield
reprinted below because the commentary track has what I think
is a real howler. Near the end of the movie, Cornfield says
in the commentary that the film was intended to be a tribute
to the Belgium artist Maigret. At first I thought I had heard
it wrong for the commentary track is so muddy and garbled in
tone. But listening a second time, Cornfield does refer to
Maigret the artist and apologizes for not mentioning this
"homage" earlier. He notes that given the use in the final
scenes of the rolled umbrella and bowler hat the homage to
the Belgium surrealist could not have been more obvious.
Cornfield also says that one reason for opposing Brando's
more realistic ending was that it would have destroyed the
tribute to the Belgium surrealist.
My head is still spinning from watching the movie for a
second time in two days and listening to the commentary
track. It is also possible that I am running into a blind
spot of my own but here are a couple of things I think are
true:
1) I'm no art expert but I know from having resided in
Belgium for a time that Belgium artists were among the
leaders in surrealism. There was a museum devoted to the
subject in Brussels but it never seemed to be open when I
passed by. It is likely that I would have heard and
remembered a surrealist painter by the name of Maigret, given
my familiarity with the detective by that name created by the
Belgium writer Georges Simenon.
2) The umbrella is the one thing the detective Maigret is
seldom without.
3) The characters and plot complications might remind someone
of a Simenon novel.
So rereading Ed's comments on Cornfield's 8th grade education
and his sensitivity about it, I wonder if someone commented
to Cornfield that his film could be viewed as a homage to the
Maigret novels and then years later when recording the
commentary track that came out as a claim that the film is a
tribute to the Belgium surrealist Maigret.
Anyway, the movie is worth seeing as long as you can tolerate
a bit of bumpy logic and silliness at the end.
Richard Moore
--- In
rara-avis-l@yahoogroups.com, ejgorman99@... wrote:
>
>
> In a message dated 9/12/06 1:51:27 PM,
juri.nummelin@... writes:
>
>
> > he says it's the best film the director - isn't
it Hubert
> > Cornfield? - ever made.
> >
>
> Juri--How about Cornfield's The Night of The
Following Day? It's
supposed to
> be Brando's movie but Richard Boone almost takes it
from him in
every
> scene--an astonishingingly creepy thug. Parts of the
picture are a
mess because of its
> misguided pretentiousness but it has moments of true
suspense and
human
> power, especially the junkie scenes with Rita
Moreno. Cornfield
died recently.
> Somebody who'd worked with him (and tried to like
him) said that he
always told
> you what he thought and told you in the most
demeaning way
possible, thus
> limiting the number of optons he had in both
features and TV. He
had something like
> an eighth grade education and made up for it by
smiting people he
saw as his
> superiors, which must have been just about
everything. Still and
all he did
> some very interesting and sometimes brave
work.
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been
removed]
>
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