Marlon Brando should have known better than to get involved in rubbish like the above film. Apart from their being a severe lack of dramatic incident, the plot is completely unbelievable. How the American criminals in the story would be able to travel all the way to France when they are wanted by the police, is anybody's guess! The attempts in making "Night of the Following Day" something of a trendy film are excruciating! Brando's toupee doesn't exactly help either. As an actor, he is merely going through the motions - which was the best thing he could have done. Al Letteri is completely wasted in his brief screen time. He should have been cast as the main villain. My advice, would be to avoid this turkey.

Released in 1968, "The Night of the Following Day" is a realistic crime drama featuring Brando as one of four professional criminals who kidnap a girl (a teenage Pamela Franklin) and hold up at a beach house in France. Richard Boone stars as the fiendish member, while Jess Hahn plays a likable loser, the brother of the pathetically drug addicted Rita Moreno.At the time of this picture Brando was 44 years old and never looked better physically -- very trim and blond. Brando didn't start getting fat until the later-70's when he was well into his 50's. In other words, people need to quit envisioning Brando as some fat dude; most of his life he wasn't. Most men in their mid-40's would kill to look as good as Brando did at the this age.BOTTOM LINE: Coming from the mid-60s when realism was fashionable this crime thriller is more of a crime drama, but suspense slowly builds to a compelling final act, which shows that crime doesn't pay, but people are redeemable if they qualify. There's also an unexpected twist that was fresh at the time, but is now eye-rolling.The film was shot during generally cloudy conditions in France and runs a short but sweet 93 minutes.GRADE: B-

Marlon Brando is among a group of no-goodniks who put the snatch on a British heiress, seventeen-year-old Pamela Franklin, in France. The other kidnappers include Rita Moreno, Jess Hahn, and Richard Boone.You can tell right away that Boone is going to be the standout villain of this edgy piece. His face resembles something a child might rudely plaster together out of lumps of modeling clay. The pock marks, pustules, ill-placed dimples, and other blemishes would have to be added later by a more accomplished sculptor. Boone has a habit of pursing his lips and tucking his tongue into his cheek while he squints, as if examining a loose tooth. His very laugh is a hoarse, smoke-cured cackle.The movie maybe should have been all about Boone. He doesn't have to do more than wander around peering through shop windows and having coffee at a couple of sidewalk cafés in Paris in order to keep our interest.Unfortunately, the movie has a plot and the plot torpedoes it and it sinks with all hands. The model here is the gang that gets together to pull off some caper, with some tension between the members, and a final shot at a double cross. Sometimes the plot is relatively simple, as in "Ronin" or "Odds Against Tomorrow", and sometimes it turns positively rococo, as in David Mamet's "Heist." But the rule is that everyone in the gang, for reasons of his own, must pull together until enough tension is generated to precipitate the final violent confrontation.Not here. The gang is holed up with its captive in a pretty cottage on the bare and windswept coast of the English channel. Franklin has been warned never to step outside. But, thinking everyone is asleep, she tiptoes down the stairs and tries to step over the slumbering figure of Boone. Boone grabs her ankle, she shrieks, and he peeks up her tiny skirt. Then Boone shouts at Franklin and shakes her a bit before Brando appears and puts a stop to it, sending Franklin back upstairs to bed.Next scene: Brando is arguing with his friend, Jess Hahn, slamming the kitchen table and accusing Boone of being "psycho", of having slapped Franklin around, of punching her, of slamming her head against the wall. The audience has seen no such thing. The discontinuity between what actually happened and Brando's fantastic description of it makes one wonder exactly who is "psycho" around here. Of course it's true that Boone did peek up her skirt but who wouldn't? Pamela Franklin is so yummy that any perfectly normal man might be excused for wanting to nibble her kneecap. Who does Brando think he is, anyway -- judging people so freely? It's not as if HIS escutcheon were without blots.In fact, though, Brando is pretty good with this unchallenging material. This is not the obese Brando of later years. He's tan and fit, his jaw robust, his lips tiny, and he paces along with a stride that perfectly blends insouciance with purposiveness. He's a man here who knows where he's going, although he must have wondered from time to time how he wound up in this picture. The director, Hubert Cornfield, certainly wondered. Brando refused to do some scenes, showed up drunk for another, and demanded direction from Richard Boone for another.The scene directed by Boone is the kitchen argument between Brando and his friend Hahn. Aside from the fact that it comes far too soon in the scenario -- I mean, they've only just kidnapped the girl that day and Brando is already fed up with the scheme and thinks it will fail because of Boone -- it lasts too long and gives Jess Hahn an opportunity to prove that he may be a great and bulky screen presence like some other supporting players, but he just can't act. Rita Moreno does better but she's stuck with this tar baby too.Cornfield ends the movie as he began it, with Pamela Franklin waking up aboard an airplane about to land in Paris. He says he got the idea from a British film called "The Dead of Night." I don't doubt him. The problem is that this roundabout business BELONGS in a nightmare like "Dead of Night," just as it belonged in a life-course novel like "Finnegans Wake." But what is it doing in a caper movie? What's the point? What was Cornfield thinking -- or was he thinking at all? Imagine if, in "The Asphalt Jungle", Sterling Hayden woke up and it was all a dream and the movie started all over at the beginning. Well?

This was a real shocker of a movie. I was very young when I first saw it and never had a clue as to the violence and psychological drama that would occur! This is a definite must see movie! Until I read the cast names, I had no idea that Rita Moreno had a part in it. Marlon Brando is a sympathetic character for quite some time. Poor Pamela, the one with no name, makes such a good victim. Unfortunately, the violence really keeps this from children watching; although nowadays, it wouldn't be considered that violent or disturbing by the jaded eyes of our new generation or the generation before! It would be great to know the background of this movie and the making of it! Pamela Franklin either liked the "victim" roles or they were the ones that were available to her at the time. ANOTHER interesting fact that I and many others would like to know! Who directed her choices? Who was her mentor? Where were her Parents? This is a DVD that I would certainly love to purchase unless it is only on VHS at this time.