MovieChat Forums > The Other Side of Midnight (1977) Discussion > US war hero a villain?

US war hero a villain?

posted 12 years ago by hambuger15
3 replies | jump to latest

Yes I know that this movie was released 2 years after the end of the Vietnam conflict but come on in the 40s that was waay before Vietnam let alone Korea.
This is my observation:This Larry character was a reflection of the unpopularity of Vietnam vets at the time of the movie's release.
Larry is nothing more than a Vietnam vet DISGUISED as a World War 2 hero-turned villain.
The book depicts many of Larry's war heroics(I will bring that up in another post)
along with the resurgence of World War 2 heroes in movies in the likes of Midway and A Bridge Too Far.
No way this would be remade today because we are still in the Afghan conflict and we can't afford negative depiction of the military on screen.

[–] OnlyRocknRoll 11 years ago

Your take is interesting. I didn't see any political agendas to his character.

He was just another bastard trying to get into a young girls pants. What made him a villain was the lengths he went to to con and bamboozle her desire for love. Hadn't she already been sold by her father to a man who raped her? What was the reason for the fantasy BS? If he wanted 'no strings' then he should have paid a hooker, or better still, spared any woman his usurous attentions and gotten off with his hand.

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[–] OnlyRocknRoll 11 years ago

[–] cookiela2001 10 years ago

What made him a villain was the lengths he went to to con and bamboozle her desire for love...What was the reason for the fantasy BS?

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SPOILER

I know. This is really the only weak link in the (otherwise fabulous!) book. It doesn't make sense that Larry would promise to return and send Noelle off with money to buy a wedding dress...he's not sadistic, just selfish!

If he only wanted to ditch her, he could have just ducked into a dark alleyway and taken off. In the book when they are reunited, we get something like, "As she spoke of this past, he had the stirrings of dim memories of a girl...but there had been so many girls."

Ohhhh-kaaaaaay....so Larry just habitually ditched girls with promises of marriage all the time, and sending the dewy-eyed hopefuls merrily off to buy wedding dresses was nothing UNUSUAL that he just MIGHT recall??

Anyway, I love this majestically trashy book. It's too bad the movie version isn't stronger, though Susan Sarandon is great, and very amusing in her chatterbox way : )
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