John T. Ryan WE ARE QUITE familiar with this film; having worked part time at the old United Artists Theatre in Downtown Chicagoduring its premierre run. It is quite possible that, had it not been for that circumstance, it would be an unknown commodity. ONE CAN ONLY describe it as a sort of Film Noir Romance Murder Mystery in Full Colour. Is that perfectly clear? AS FAR AS the physical look of the production, it is truly beautiful, bright and colorful. Location shooting and studio sets are all well coordinated and add to the impressive story telling. The exteriors done in Europe are interesting; competing successfully with those of any of the old travelogues.* THE STORY ITSELF, based on the novel by Sydney Sheldon, appears to have incorporated the actual true life occurrences from several different incidents into the scenario. Of particular interest is a Greek Shipping Tycoon; who bears an obvious character resemblance to Aristotle Onassis.THE WELL EXECUTED cinematography includes a lot of sex scenes with a heaping helping dose of "Now you see it, now you don't" nudity. The tawdry bedroom goings on lead us to believe that, rather than being an example of the romantic novel, it is more of an exercise in titillation and celluloid masturbation.WE HAVE RECENTLY read that 20th Century-Fox, its studio had projected that THE OTHER SIDE OF MIDNIGHT would be its biggest money maker of that Summer of 1977 and adjusted its rental price. It had a less higher expectation for another Summer release, STAR WARS, which went into distribution for Le$$ BuckS! NOTE: * For all of those among you (our readers) who are under 60, a TRAVELOGUE is a film which highlights a particular city, state, or country. Typically, one would contain a lot of interesting and varied outdoor scenes accompanied by flowery voice over narration. They were short subjects of about 20-30 minutes in length.

Dave from Ottawa ... 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.

dmckp123 When I first pulled this disc from its sleeve I was dismayed at its 166 minute length. But, this being a snowy night I went for it. And yes there were moments when I wished it was shorter. Yet there were several rewards for keeping to it. The story is primarily about the characters, and how their destinies are ordained by the choices they make. They may not have been typical, but they were believable. It was a good old-fashioned cautionary tale, told with healthy doses of sex and romance, and in the high European milieu that still fascinates us. Marie-France Pisier as Noelle did an excellent job, developing her character from an innocent and vulnerable country girl, then surviving heartbreak and near self-destruction to become a successful model and actress, and finally flowering as a confident and elegant lady, mistress to a wealthy man. She was wise to play down a vicious character as she plotted revenge on her first lover, for in spite of her faults, she is essentially a sympathetic figure, though not quite a hero. And she is gorgeous - as a guy, I loved watching her, even with her clothes on. The other lead actors were "serviceable" as someone else here noted, though Susan Sarandon was the most fun to watch as Catherine, a young woman finding her own career success in the world of Washington public relations. John Bell as Larry was at root selfish and untrustworthy, and to the actor's credit his face never betrayed any other emotion. Other good things were attention to detail, especially in the final courtroom scenes. No loose ends were left lying in the plot. I like a legal story when it appeals to my intelligence, not my emotions, as Hollywood so often does.

Poseidon-3 In what's basically a lost genre by now (sexy, poolside page-turner spun into glitzy, big-screen epic), Pisier goes from an innocent, young French girl to a fabulously wealthy film actress in the course of about 8 years. Wasting no time in establishing the tawdry tone of the film, she is basically sold by her parents, as a youth, to a local couturier (a straight couturier?!) who is played by a hairy and repugnant Booke (soon to be famous as Boss Hogg on "The Dukes of Hazard"!) Her father passes on the sage advise, "Let the hand under your dress be one of gold" (one of many howlers in the movie's dialogue) as her stone-faced mother (Chauvin) looks on. Unhappy with this arrangement, she flees to France where she meets up with Beck, a Canadian airman who takes her in and falls in love with her. When he's shipped off, she waits for him to come back and marry her (made ever more urgent by the fact that she's knocked up), but things get off course. Meanwhile, Sarandon is a slightly daffy, but resourceful public relations worker who's saving herself for Mister Right. When contrivances place Sarandon and Beck in the same vicinity, they fall for each other and are married, much to Pisier's dismay. From this point, Pisier is driven to bringing Beck back to her no matter what it takes and making him hers no matter what it takes, even if it's murder. Pisier (who in some shots resembles a young Joan Collins) injects a fair amount of emotion into her meaty role, but still comes off just a touch lacking. A bigger name actress may have given the role a few more layers, though few actresses would have been as willing as Pisier to continually doff her clothes and show off her pert bust (and more.) The very petite actress wears some downright massive heels throughout the film in order to meet Beck halfway and to show off some truly eye-popping Sharaff costumes. Beck (whose chin seems more prominent in his early scenes than at any other time in his career) fails to give his role the necessary magnetism or charisma that would inspire a woman to move heaven and earth to possess him. He's serviceable at best. Sarandon gets to have the most fun, displaying everything from wacky humor to imperiousness to romance to the degradation of alcohol to even the thrill of wearing a flimsy nightgown during a thunderstorm. Other key cast members include Vallone as a barely disguised Ari Onassis clone and Gulager as Sarandon's principled boss. For some reason, Marquand is denied the same star billing as the other folks and gets lumped in with the secondary players. Perhaps it is due to his humiliating love scenes with Pisier in which she tantalizes him with her long hair and two handfuls of ice! At least he seems to have retained a sense of humor about it. Look fast for Hesseman, of all people, as a film director. The film has the unfortunate task of trying to cram nearly a decade's worth of story into feature length. Even with its bloated running time, it's still necessary to skip over a lot. The director never met a music montage he didn't love and there are many in the film. Fortunately, skilled composer Legrand is on hand to ladle some sense of romance onto the film. One great asset is the production design, which features some really striking sets (primarily belonging to Vallone's character.) There are also a few memorable sequences such as a harrowing (and harrowingly tacky) bathtub abortion and a mean-spirited trip into a deserted section of a cavern. In the end, the film cannot escape its many clichés and contrivances and its ultimate silliness, but there are a few laughs and bits of interest to be had along the way. This type of flick (see also "The Betsy" and "Jacqueline Susann's Once is Not Enough") would soon be virtually abandoned as the type of material was more often used in TV mini-series like "Scruples" (also featuring Pisier), "Princess Daisy", "Hollywood Wives" and the lame sequel to this very film "Memories of Midnight", which had Jane Seymour (!) taking over Sarandon's role.