In Small Packages

Look sharp. Comb the newspaper listings. Check out the theaters that usually show revivals. Any moviegoer interested in seeing one of the tensest, toughest thrillers in a long while should be watching for The Night of the Following Day. Universal Pictures apparently has little faith or interest in the film, and is consequently treating it with tender, loving indifference. In many cities, Night is opening in second-run houses with a minimum of publicity, thus practically guaranteeing that it will be seen mostly by popcorn addicts, teenagers on dates and those looking for a cozy place to sleep. But diligent moviegoers who do manage to search out Night will be rewarded by a keenly conducted seminar in the poetics of psychological terror, with up-to-date touches of sadism.

Subtle Variations. The plot is a simple blueprint from which Hubert Cornfield, the director, producer and coauthor, builds an intricate superstructure. A girl (Pamela Franklin) is kidnaped at Orly Airport by a man dressed as a chauffeur (Marlon Brando). The chauffeur and his three partners (Richard Boone, Rita Moreno, Jess Hahn) hold her captive at a deserted seaside cottage while they approach her wealthy father about the ransom. The mechanics of the operation and, more important, the slowly disintegrating relationships between the kidnapers are the essence of the film.

Cornfield transforms this rather ordinary premise into a kind of vision of surreal violence. Working closely with Cinematographer Willi Kurant, he creates an autumnal landscape, heavy with fear, that is the stuff that nightmares are made of. From the subdued hues of a beach at dawn to the bleached neon whiteness of a bathroom, colors serve both to establish the mood of each scene and underscore the precisely orchestrated tension. The film's ambiguous ending, which puts a parenthesis of fantasy around the action, may at first seem facile. On reflection, however, the viewer finds that a whole new range of interpretation has been opened with a single, clever stroke.

Richard Boone, Rita Moreno and Jess Hahn play their laconic roles with subtle variations of character that are worth pages of dialogue. But Marlon Brando draws them all together and establishes the tone of the whole film. Playing a kind of hipster-hood-hero, Brando can chill the blood with a smile or describe dimensions with a move of his hand. Since he provided the driving force behind One-Eyed Jacks, of which he was both star and director in 1961, Brando has essayed a series of character roles in a succession of failures: a brooding cowpoke in The Appaloosa, a self-righteous sheriff in The Chase, a cagey con-man in Bedtime Story. Once again in a film good enough to match his talents, he demonstrates conclusively in Night that his powers remain undiminished by intervening years of sloppiness and self-indulgence. It is good to have him back.

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