I agree with most of the reviews written. My comment is that since they are remaking every movie these days that are not even 15 years old, why not try this one. The Other Side of Midnight would make a perfect mini-series on HBO, Showtime, etc. The time is right. The story can be told in full detail. Many scenes can be shot with no editing. With a good cast and good director, this book can be made into a good soap. Regardless of what some people are saying now, soaps are needed now more than ever. I would rather engross myself in a good soap opera rather than the reality show nonsense they are cramming down our throats.

Producer Frank Yablans and 20th Century Fox spent some serious cash on "The Other Side of Midnight" filming scenes on location in Paris, Washington, DC and Greece. It certainly looks good on screen. The lush musical score by Michel Legrand made the movie sound more important than it really is. (When is a Legrand musical score not lush?) But the plodding epic WWII romantic story about two women who are in love with the same pilot, adapted from the best selling Sidney Sheldon novel, should not be taken too seriously. The movie is so soapy, I'm surprised Procter & Gamble did not co-produce the movie.Marie-France Pisier tries her best to flesh out (pun intended) her character of Noelle, using her body to get to the top. But the scenes with Sorrell Booke as a businessman who bought Noelle from her father, Christian Marquand as a filmmaker and Raf Vallone as a Greek tycoon, were rather embarrassing and I did not feel any sympathy toward her character. John Beck fared even worse as a very uncharismatic, two-timing cad. It is interesting that after "Midnight", Pisier (who I remember from a much better movie from two years earlier, Cousin, Cousine) went back to appearing in movies in her native France and Beck continued to appear in soaps, this time on television.Somehow, I thought Susan Sarandon fared best because she was the best actor of the three leads. I felt more sympathy for her character Catherine than Noelle. And what has happened to Sarandon after this trash-fest? Can someone say a thinking man's sex symbol? (Oscar-winning performance as Sr. Helen Prejean in "Dead Man Walking" notwithstanding.) Why a 5 out of 10 instead of a 1 or 2? I remember reading many negative reviews when it was first released in 1977. However, unlike what was reported in the IMDb Trivia section, the movie did have a long run in theaters and was a moderate success at the box office. Even though I was very leery of the film's 2 hour, 45 minute length, I caught the movie on cable TV. This movie is like a trashy summer novel, I could not put this movie down. Without giving the ending away, the plot twists almost made the film worth my time. Having seen the movie several times in the past few years, The Other Side of Midnight is a bad movie but I plead guilty to admit that it is so bad, it's good.Update (5/10/2007): I tried to re-watch this movie and ended up fast forwarding through the boring parts. I guess my original review was rather generous. If you cut down the "getting to know you" musical montage scenes, the transition scenes where people are walking from one beautiful scene to another and delete the gratuitous nude scenes, it might have been better. The movie is also filled with script exposition and not enough actual scenes that might have made the movie more interesting. The scenes between Pisier and Michael Lerner, who plays an investigator trailing John Beck's character, are especially deadly.Sarandon's performance still holds up. She exudes more depth to her character than the script allows. I sense that the movie was made by some dirty old men whose idea for a "chick flick" was to see the main female characters naked. A naked male lead? Not a chance.

If this were to have been done twenty years later with a modern sensibility, gullible stars, a more lethal editor, and a spot more atmosphere, it could well have ended up as a hit. The budget was obviously good, and the photography is mostly excellent despite its too-frequent descent into seventies syrup. The lighting (and look) tends to be pretty uniform - for example, Wartime Paris was apparently a beautifully colorful time, and the mood gay and sumptuous, but then so is everything else, right down to the fitted carpet. The debt owed to the black and white classics is apparent, but there is something very unconvincing about using the old styles of movie-making with full-on glossy, TV color. A shame they didn't go all the way, and let the hammers fly -for heavens' sake give me some deep shadow when the lights are on. All in all, the zoom lens is over-active, the script underwhelming, and the score dreary. The performances, however, are lively and committed and the styling and costumes sometimes inspired. "Entraptured" as I was, I couldn't help feeling I was watching a Judith Krantz novel....oh, that's right - it's Sidney Sheldon! Compelling nonetheless...

The scenery in Marseilles, Paris, Washington and Greece was nice, but the movie had some problems.First of all, the movie was just too long. There are long montages of love scenes that just keep going and going. Yes, we get the idea. They are falling in love.Second, having all the dialog in English is just not real enough. Maybe that style was fine, for 1977, but it would have been more enjoyable if two people from France would speak French to each other. Maybe subtitles were not in vogue in the late-70's... although George Lucas used them in Star Wars for various aliens.Third, the ending was more of an international film ending that a Hollywood ending and, since this was distributed by Twentieth Century Fox, I expected a Hollywood ending, but was denied. And why does Constantin care about Catherine anyway? I was scratching my head on that one.Fourth, Larry is schizophrenic. I like him, I hate him, he's romantic, he's a cad, he settles down, he fools around. I got whiplash trying to keep up.While Marie-France and Susan were technically great, the best actor in the film was Clu Gulager, playing his minor character role with perfect subtlety. It's too bad he wasn't part of the courtroom scene towards the end of the film. I almost laughed when I saw Sorrell Booke (Boss Hogg) with a French accent.The plot of the story was compelling though. Two stories, seemingly separate, yet you start to piece together how these stories will come together. This was very enjoyable.But can anyone tell me what title has to do with the film? This is a pet peeve of mine. Marketing titles that mean nothing in the story.This movie split it right down the middle for me, 5/10. Worth watching once, but probably never again.