The Other Side of Midnight is a novel by American writer Sidney Sheldon

Sidney Sheldon

Sidney Sheldon was an Academy Award-winning American writer. His TV works spanned a 20-year period during which he created The Patty Duke Show , I Dream of Jeannie and Hart to Hart , but he became most famous after he turned 50 and began writing best-selling novels such as Master of the Game ,...

 published in 1973

1973 in literature

The year 1973 in literature involved several significant events and the writing of many notable books.-Events:*September 25 - The funeral of Chilean poet Pablo Neruda becomes a focus for protests against the new government of Augusto Pinochet...

. The book reached No.1 on the New York Times Best Seller list. It was made into a 1977

1977 in film

The year 1977 in film involved some significant events.-Events:*In the Academy Awards, Peter Finch, Faye Dunaway and Beatrice Straight win Best Actor and Actress and Supporting Actress awards for Network....

 motion picture of the same name

The Other Side of Midnight (film)

The Other Side of Midnight is a 1977 American film directed by Charles Jarrott and starring Marie-France Pisier, John Beck and Susan Sarandon...

, directed by Charles Jarrott

Charles Jarrott

Charles Jarrott was a British film and television director. He was best known for costume dramas he directed for producer Hal B...

. The cast included Marie-France Pisier

Marie-France Pisier

Marie-France Pisier was a French actress. She appeared in numerous films of the French New Wave and twice earned the national César Award for Best Supporting Actress.-Life and career:...

, John Beck

John Beck (actor)

John Beck is an American actor. He grew up in Joliet, Illinois. Renowned as a gritty actor with plenty of presence on set, he is ultimately best-known worldwide for playing the role of Mark Graison in Dallas during the mid-1980s, but is also well-known for several other roles in which he...

, Susan Sarandon

Susan Sarandon

Susan Sarandon is an American actress. She has worked in films and television since 1969, and won an Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in the 1995 film Dead Man Walking. She had also been nominated for the award for four films before that and has received other recognition for her...

, Christian Marquand

Christian Marquand

Christian Marquand was a French director, actor and screenwriter working in French cinema. A native of Marseille, he was born to a Spanish father and an Arabic mother his sister was film director Nadine Trintignant, and he can be seen as a heartthrob in French movies of the 1950s.His first film...

 and Josette Banzet

Josette Banzet

Josette Banzet, Marquise de Bruyenne is a French-born American-based actress. She won a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress in a Series, Miniseries or Television Film for her performance in Rich Man, Poor Man. -Marriages:...

. In Japan, it was adapted and broadcast as a radio drama

Radio drama

Radio drama is a dramatized, purely acoustic performance, broadcast on radio or published on audio media, such as tape or CD. With no visual component, radio drama depends on dialogue, music and sound effects to help the listener imagine the characters and story...

, with a soundtrack by Yoko Kanno

Yoko Kanno

is a composer, arranger and musician best known for her work on the soundtracks for many games, anime films, TV series, live-action movies, and advertisements...

 and Maaya Sakamoto

Maaya Sakamoto

is a Japanese singer-songwriter, actress, and voice actress. She made her debut as a voice actress in 1992 as the voice of Chifuru in the anime series Little Twins, but is more well known for her role as Hitomi Kanzaki in the hit anime series The Vision of Escaflowne...

.

Plot

The story focuses on two women: the first is the beautiful Noelle Page, who is born to a fisherman in Marseilles; the second is well-read but shy wit Catherine Alexander, whose father had big dreams he was never able to fulfil. Catherine is embarrassed about the fact that she is a virgin.

Noelle was born as a result of an extra-marital affair in Marseilles, France, but her mother never told her husband the truth. Her foster father always called her his 'princess' and decided to exploit her beauty by taking money from dress shop owner Auguste Lanchon in exchange for letting Noelle sleep with him. Noelle falls in love with RAF pilot Larry Douglas when she escapes to Paris. He promises to marry her but disappears from Paris and does not return. Noelle, distraught, finds she is pregnant and terminates at five-and-a-half months along in grisly fashion.

Catherine is an American born to a father who always had big dreams, but could never fulfil them. Because she is an aloof virgin, the people in her university call her a lesbian. She finds a job with a man called Bill Fraser with whom she begins a relationship, but falls in love with Larry Douglas instead. Larry and Catherine marry, unaware of Noelle's plans for vengeance against the man who jilted her so carelessly.

Larry's lies gradually entwine the lives of these two women in a dazzling story of passion, vengeance, power and greed.