The Other Side of Midnight (1977)

... 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Sarandon in particular seem to have been time warped back to a 1950s melodrama, making their performances seem awfully out of date for the more naturalistic 1970s cinema.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.

The Other Side of Midnight is often dismissed as being so bad it's good or a lurid soapy drama. I can't condemn the film that easily. When I first saw this I was a young man fascinated with the sex scenes which today seem very, very mild. Is the DVD a different cut? Perhaps. But whenever the film came on Showtime or TV I would watch it. Why the interest? Well, there are many elements that make this film interesting. First of all, the actors. Susan Sarandon, John Beck, Marie France Pisier and even the actors in small roles really brought something to this despite some of the lousy dialogue. Also, the locations. Even if they aren't authentic, the sets seem great and the outdoor shots beautiful. The film switches back & forth between America and Europe and you can't help but become absorbed by the differences in the sets and speech.I think it is also fun to see Noelle's innocence in the beginning and watch her become this bloodthirsty & ruthless person who will do anything to get what she wants. It's a role Joan Collins would have died for!Some of it is very dated today. I recently watched it and laughed every time I saw Marie in her clunky, tall platform heels. Every drag queen would love to have a pair just like that. So, I think people will find some of this very dated and perhaps old fashioned but there is no denying the thrill of watching some of this drama unfold on screen.

I have always loved this movie from the first time I saw it. First of all Marie France-Pisier is a beautiful woman and she plays the part perfectly. She is in Paris in the 40s after being pawed by every lech, and then meets the man she falls in love with - a soldier. Perfectly played by John Beck. I love the actor that plays Constantine and seeing Susan Sarandon in this - I had almost forgotten. Something about this movie appeals to the woman in me that has been groped and pawed all my life by men, against my will. I love her revenge. That is the story a story of abuse, love and revenge. I like the movie. It will not win an academy award, but it is one of my favorite. It keeps me engaged like a good mystery novel.

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.