# The Night of the Following Day
**The Night of the Following Day** is a 1969 American crime thriller directed, co-written, and produced by Hubert Cornfield, in which a gang of professional criminals kidnaps a wealthy teenage girl at Paris' Orly Airport and holds her at an isolated French seaside house while waiting for a ransom that never goes according to plan.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/23486-THE-NIGHT-OF-THE-FOLLOWING-DAY) It stars [Marlon Brando](https://www.edgepedia.org/marlon-brando) as Bud, the chauffeur, [Richard Boone](https://www.edgepedia.org/richard-boone) as the sadistic Leer, Rita Moreno as Vi, and [Pamela Franklin](https://www.edgepedia.org/pamela-franklin) as the kidnapped girl, with Jess Hahn and Al Lettieri in supporting roles.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/23486-THE-NIGHT-OF-THE-FOLLOWING-DAY) The film was adapted from Lionel White's 1953 novel *The Snatchers*, ran 93 minutes in Technicolor, and was distributed by Universal Pictures.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/23486-THE-NIGHT-OF-THE-FOLLOWING-DAY)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Director / writers | Hubert Cornfield, co-written with Robert Phippeny, from Lionel White's novel *The Snatchers* (New York, 1953)[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/23486-THE-NIGHT-OF-THE-FOLLOWING-DAY) |
| Cast | Marlon Brando (Bud, the chauffeur), Richard Boone (The Leer), Rita Moreno (Vi), Pamela Franklin (the girl), Jess Hahn, Al Lettieri[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/23486-THE-NIGHT-OF-THE-FOLLOWING-DAY) |
| Production | Gina Productions, a Jerry Gershwin-Elliott Kastner production; distributed by Universal Pictures; 93 minutes, Technicolor, RCA sound[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/23486-THE-NIGHT-OF-THE-FOLLOWING-DAY) |
| Filming | Location scenes filmed in France, including Le Touquet; sources conflict in crediting the director of photography (Willy Kurant and Jean Klissak)[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/23486-THE-NIGHT-OF-THE-FOLLOWING-DAY) • [2](https://www.royalbooks.com/pages/books/161068/marlon-brando-rita-moreno-richard-boone-hubert-cornfield-lionel-white-robert-phippeny-starring/the-night-of-the-following-day-two-original-photographs-from-the-1969-neo-noir-film) |
| Music | Score by Stanley Myers; the song "One Early Morning," by Myers and Jon Hendricks, was sung by Annie Ross[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/23486-THE-NIGHT-OF-THE-FOLLOWING-DAY) |
| Release | Los Angeles opening 22 January 1969; West Germany 10 January 1969; New York City 19 February 1969[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/23486-THE-NIGHT-OF-THE-FOLLOWING-DAY) • [3](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0064728/releaseinfo/) |
| Critical standing | 63% on the Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer from 8 reviews; later reappraised as a neo-noir[4](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_night_of_the_following_day) |
## Spoilers
### Plot
A gang of four professional criminals, the [Chauffeur](https://www.edgepedia.org/chauffeur) (Brando), the Blonde (Moreno), the Leer (Boone), and Friendly (Hahn), kidnaps the teenage daughter of a wealthy businessman as she disembarks from a plane at a Paris airport.[5](https://blueprintreview.co.uk/2023/02/the-night-of-the-following-day/) They take her to a remote seaside house in Brittany to wait out several days before collecting the ransom from her father.[5](https://blueprintreview.co.uk/2023/02/the-night-of-the-following-day/) The plan runs smoothly at first, but one member of the gang has ulterior motives and seeks to destroy the others and claim the ransom alone; personal demons surface, quarreling sets in, and the scheme unravels toward a violent confrontation between the two toughest members of the gang.[5](https://blueprintreview.co.uk/2023/02/the-night-of-the-following-day/) • [6](https://kinolorber.com/film/the-night-of-the-following-day)
Roger Ebert, the film critic of the *Chicago Sun-Times*, described the machinery of the plot as one of those complicated crime movies in which everybody follows enigmatic instructions, planes are rerouted, money is switched in banks, and radio towers are blown up to distract the police, while Boone's character stays behind at the cottage with the kidnapped girl.[7](http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-night-of-the-following-day-1969)
## Production
The project had an earlier owner. According to accounts of its history, [Stanley Kubrick](https://www.edgepedia.org/stanley-kubrick) had acquired the rights to White's novel and planned to use it for his directorial debut, but he was unable to put the film into production because of rules about depicting kidnapping on screen in the early 1960s; he instead filmed White's *Clean Break* as *[The Killing](https://www.edgepedia.org/the-killing-film)* (1956).[5](https://blueprintreview.co.uk/2023/02/the-night-of-the-following-day/) • [8](https://letterboxd.com/man_out_of_time/film/the-night-of-the-following-day/) By 1969 those rules had lapsed, and Cornfield, a graphic designer turned director who had personally acquired the novel's rights, set about making the adaptation himself.[5](https://blueprintreview.co.uk/2023/02/the-night-of-the-following-day/)
Cornfield shot on location in France, with cinematography credited to Willy Kurant, though the [American Film Institute](https://www.edgepedia.org/american-film-institute) catalog notes that sources conflict on the director of photography, also crediting Jean Klissak.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/23486-THE-NIGHT-OF-THE-FOLLOWING-DAY) The production carried a Jerry Gershwin-Elliott Kastner production credit, with Cornfield as producer and Georges Pellegrin as assistant director.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/23486-THE-NIGHT-OF-THE-FOLLOWING-DAY) One retrospective review states that the film was originally intended to star Richard Boone, and that Brando, whose career was in eclipse at the time and who owed Universal a movie, took the role; the same account says Brando bullied Cornfield on the set and ultimately off the picture, which it says was finished by Boone in an uncredited co-directing capacity.[9](https://mysteryfile.com/blog/?p=1973) A Trailers From Hell essay records that Cornfield's commentary discusses troubles he encountered in making the movie, including Brando's behavior, and that the film's controversies included Brando's reported lack of faith in his director and [Rita Moreno](https://www.edgepedia.org/rita-moreno)'s personal problems.[10](https://trailersfromhell.com/the-night-of-the-following-day-2/)
The title came from Cornfield's story breakdown, which divides the narrative into four parts: [A Day](https://www.edgepedia.org/a-day), That Night, The Following Day, and The Night of the Following Day.[10](https://trailersfromhell.com/the-night-of-the-following-day-2/)
## Style
Rather than a straightforward caper picture, the film takes on a slow, steady pace focused on mundane details, which reviewers have read as lending the story a gritty realism rather than overwrought melodrama, and it draws as much from auteurist European cinema and [Arthur Penn](https://www.edgepedia.org/arthur-penn)'s American New Wave as from the standard Hollywood noir thriller playbook.[5](https://blueprintreview.co.uk/2023/02/the-night-of-the-following-day/) [Pauline Kael](https://www.edgepedia.org/pauline-kael), writing in *The New Yorker* in March 1969, described a handsomely designed film in gold, brown, blue, and black, with characters silhouetted against white walls and a stylized scheme in which the hero and his girl have gold hair.[11](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1969/03/08/the-small-winner) The final scenes between Boone and Brando, shot on a beach at dawn, struck Ebert as having an almost surrealistic quality.[7](http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-night-of-the-following-day-1969)
The ending is the film's most discussed feature. In its final moments it replays its opening sequence, in which the teenage heiress is woken from her slumber by Moreno's air hostess as their plane is about to land in Paris, a device compared to the ending of the Ealing anthology *Dead of Night*; the end credits then name Brando and Moreno only from the girl's point of view, as "Chauffeur" and "Blonde," stripping the characters of the identities they appeared to have.[8](https://letterboxd.com/man_out_of_time/film/the-night-of-the-following-day/) The ending was subject to much controversy upon the film's original release.[5](https://blueprintreview.co.uk/2023/02/the-night-of-the-following-day/)
## Reception
Contemporary American response was largely negative. Kael called the film "that mixture of the fancy and the stupid which makes a movie an art movie in the worst sense," while noting that the audience seemed to be having a good time laughing at and with it, and speculated that it might be taken up as a classic crime picture abroad.[11](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1969/03/08/the-small-winner) Ebert gave the film three stars out of four, judging that it worked as a well-made melodrama and praising Moreno's quiet conviction in a difficult scene, Boone's sinister niceness, and Jess Hahn's solid gang leader, but questioning whether Brando should be spending his time on such pictures rather than exploring the depths of his performance in *[Reflections in a Golden Eye](https://www.edgepedia.org/reflections-in-a-golden-eye-film)*.[7](http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-night-of-the-following-day-1969) The film did not perform commercially; Ebert reported that Universal booked it into a few small neighborhood theaters while a weaker crime picture took the major Chicago booking, and a later account notes that the *New York Times* critic assigned to the movie had to go to a 42nd Street house to review it.[7](http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-night-of-the-following-day-1969) • [12](https://trailersfromhell.com/cinesavant/the-night-of-the-following-day-2/)
Later assessments have been more mixed to favorable. On Rotten Tomatoes the film holds a 63% Tomatometer from 8 reviews and a 45% audience score; recent critics have called it an often fascinating film featuring one of Brando's least "methody" performances, or a badly bungled caper yarn, depending on the reviewer.[4](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_night_of_the_following_day) Home-video criticism has placed the film among the neo-noir titles that preceded the genre's critical recognition in the 1970s, calling it a bridge between classic Hollywood style and the harder edge of later entries, and noting that it has undergone reappraisal as a very good neo-noir worthy of rediscovery.[13](https://www.hometheaterforum.com/the-night-of-the-following-day-blu-ray-review/) Kino Lorber issued a Blu-ray in 2021 with a commentary by film historian Tim Lucas and a legacy commentary by Cornfield, and Indicator released a UK limited edition in February 2023 with a high-definition remaster and archival interviews.[13](https://www.hometheaterforum.com/the-night-of-the-following-day-blu-ray-review/) • [14](https://www.powerhousefilms.co.uk/products/the-night-of-the-following-day-le)
## The literary source
Lionel White (1905-1985) was an American crime fiction novelist whose first mass-market paperback, *The Snatchers*, appeared in 1953 from Fawcett Gold Medal; that novel was adapted into this film.[15](https://www.paperbackwarrior.com/2021/11/paperback-warrior-primer-lionel-white.html) White specialized in crimes gone wrong: his 1955 novel *Clean Break* became Kubrick's *The Killing* (1956), and his *Obsession* (1962) served as a starting point for [Jean-Luc Godard](https://www.edgepedia.org/jean-luc-godard)'s *[Pierrot le Fou](https://www.edgepedia.org/pierrot-le-fou)* (1965).[15](https://www.paperbackwarrior.com/2021/11/paperback-warrior-primer-lionel-white.html) • [11](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1969/03/08/the-small-winner) Kael's review placed *The Night of the Following Day* in this lineage of [White pulp](https://www.edgepedia.org/white-pulp) adaptations, noting that Kubrick used one White novel for *The Killing* and Godard used another for *Pierrot le Fou*.[11](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1969/03/08/the-small-winner)
## References
1. [The Night of the Following Day (1969), AFI Catalog of Feature Films](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/23486-THE-NIGHT-OF-THE-FOLLOWING-DAY)
2. [The Night of the Following Day, two original photographs, Royal Books](https://www.royalbooks.com/pages/books/161068/marlon-brando-rita-moreno-richard-boone-hubert-cornfield-lionel-white-robert-phippeny-starring/the-night-of-the-following-day-two-original-photographs-from-the-1969-neo-noir-film)
3. [The Night of the Following Day (1969) Release info, IMDb](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0064728/releaseinfo/)
4. [Night of the Following Day, Rotten Tomatoes](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_night_of_the_following_day)
5. [The Night of the Following Day, Blueprint: Review (2023)](https://blueprintreview.co.uk/2023/02/the-night-of-the-following-day/)
6. [The Night of the Following Day, Kino Lorber](https://kinolorber.com/film/the-night-of-the-following-day)
7. [The Night of the Following Day movie review (1969), Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times](http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-night-of-the-following-day-1969)
8. [The Night of the Following Day review by Mark Cunliffe, Letterboxd](https://letterboxd.com/man_out_of_time/film/the-night-of-the-following-day/)
9. [A Movie Review by Dan Stumpf: The Night of the Following Day (1968), Mystery*File](https://mysteryfile.com/blog/?p=1973)
10. [The Night of the Following Day, Trailers From Hell](https://trailersfromhell.com/the-night-of-the-following-day-2/)
11. [The Small Winner, Pauline Kael, The New Yorker (March 8, 1969)](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1969/03/08/the-small-winner)
12. [CineSavant: The Night of the Following Day, Glenn Erickson, Trailers From Hell (2021)](https://trailersfromhell.com/cinesavant/the-night-of-the-following-day-2/)
13. [The Night of the Following Day Blu-ray Review, Home Theater Forum](https://www.hometheaterforum.com/the-night-of-the-following-day-blu-ray-review/)
14. [The Night of the Following Day Limited Edition, Powerhouse Films (Indicator)](https://www.powerhousefilms.co.uk/products/the-night-of-the-following-day-le)
15. [Paperback Warrior Primer: Lionel White](https://www.paperbackwarrior.com/2021/11/paperback-warrior-primer-lionel-white.html)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Film noir and neo-noir films › Released 1940 to 1975*
*Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
*Copyright 2026 EdgeChat AI, a subsidiary of Biostate AI.*
License: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license