The Other Side of Midnight (1977)

Plenty to Like, Plenty to Dislike

Excellent but underrated film

Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

Great movie. Not sure what people expected but I found it highly entertaining.

This takes place from 1939 to 1948. An innocent French girl named Noelle (Marie-France Pisier) falls in love with American pilot Larry Douglas (John Beck). They live together for a while then he leaves her and promises to return. He's lying of course and leaves her alone and pregnant. He meets ditzy but intelligent Catherine (Susan Sarandon) and marries her. However Noelle marries a billionaire (Raf Vallone) and decides to take out her revenge on Larry.This was supposed to be a big hit. It was based on a HUGE bestseller by Sidney Sheldon and they spent a lot of money on the production. It was shot on location in Greece, Italy and the US. The settings are beautiful, the costumes great and there's a wonderful music score propelling the movie. Also Pisier and Sarandon are wonderful in their roles. Unfortunately the movie bombed. It's easy to see why. It's WAY too long (165 minutes) and Beck is all wrong in his role. He's supposed to be sexually attractive and dynamic...but Beck can't pull it off. He's a total blank in the role and he's not good-looking at all. Considering he's one of the main characters it totally drains the film of any interest and makes it a chore to watch. I dozed off TWICE! Even worse some of the dialogue is SO bad it's incredible. Dull and stupid. Read the book instead.

... but not as good as it wants to be. This sprawling drama plays out over a span of decades as it follows a pretty young Parisienne who is seduced and abandoned by an American flier, and who then marries into society with the non-specific purpose of either getting him back or getting back at him. Meanwhile the flier gets married and goes through various crises of his own. The production values are expensive and look good, but the script moves with languorous slowness and, despite some fashionable 70s-style sexual frankness, everything has an old-style Hollywood feel to it, as if the movie had been made 20 years earlier than it was. John Beck and Susan Sarandon in particular seem to have been time warped back to a 1950s melodrama, making their performances seem awfully out of date for the more naturalistic 1970s cinema. Marie- France Pisier emerges as the best thing in the movie, but it's a pretty dull affair otherwise, especially when she is not on screen. Sarandon's career survived this bomb, thanks to Atlantic City a few years later, but John Beck, who was supposed to vault to stardom after this, quickly found himself in the hell of TV guest star shots.

I read the book "The Other Side of Midnight" when it first came out and fell in love with Noelle and Catherine. When the movie came out I saw it twice at the theater and loved it. 20th century fox back-stabbed this movie by not marketing it that is why it did poorly at the box office. In reality this is an old style, glossy, sweeping love story set between the years 1939 and 1947.I won't go into the plot other than to say it has it all. Love, hate, betrayal, glamor, drama, on location shooting all over the world (this was not a low budget film). I highly recommend this film to anyone who enjoys sweeping dramas, wonderful score and cinematography and a young Susan Sarandon already showing her big star chops. It is a long movie 2 hours and 45 minutes on DVD but it has been remastered the picture is perfect and the sound is as good as can be expected from a film made in 1977.

During the summer of '77, I didn't get to see as many movies as I had been used to seeing the past three years. The only other movie I saw that summer was "Star Wars."So here I am, 17 years old, and I go to this with my Grandmother and an aunt, cause, lets face it, this is what is a classic 'chick flick'. I dislike that expression cause it makes it seem like you have to be a woman to gain any enjoyment, and the only movie I'd personally attach that label to is "Thelma and Louise." Just cause the main character of a movie is a woman does not mean its not about a human being who is completely unbelievable.Anywho, I saw this again last week, and it may as well be 900 years old. They don't make trash like this anymore, but maybe that's because they don't write trash novels anymore. Gone are Harold Robbins, Jackie Susann and the author of this, Sidney Sheldon. We have Jackie Collins, but her stuff ends up on television (I think). Why has the world given up on the trash novel, the one you read on the beach or on a plane?This has it all, like the master checklist..epic length, betrayal, a lot of over- and under-acting, revenge, nudity, sex, self-abortion, international settings, a trial, an actress, a firing squad, a bitch, a virgin, a colorless leading man and even a surprise ending. 8/10.