The Other Side of Midnight masterfully shows how coincidence, perhaps destiny, slowly draws its characters together into a fateful web. Noelle, a charmingly naïve girl from Marseille, stars in this tale of love and hate; her antagonist, Catherine, is an American who could not have come from a more different life.
Noelle
Noelle is pure and moral, almost too beautiful to have come from the loins of hard labor parents. The truth is, Noelle’s real father was a handsome sailor passerby who had a brief affair with her mother, and nobody ever found out, including Noelle.
Young Noelle loves the only father she knows, but when he insists she work for (and become mistress to) an old wealthy businessman (to buy her family little luxuries during the war), she is shocked and runs away to Paris. It’s only the beginning of her journey to losing her soul.
Catherine
Catherine lacks Noelle’s trusting and innocent allure. Her outstanding feature is an ability to be genuine, a quality she never loses. A virgin, Catherine is embarrassed by it and disappointed that males seem uninterested in her. She’s extremely pretty, but awkward, close in age to Noelle who lives across the sea – both still unbeknownst to each other. Catherine tries to seduce her beloved boss (a much older, well-to-do businessman), who holds a fatherly respect for her.
The irony of the two lives of Catherine and Noelle is already set.
Larry
In Paris, a man steals Noelle’s money. Dispirited, she enters the lobby of a hotel to sleep. A hotel worker orders her away, believing she is one of the prostitutes who frequent the lobby. As Noelle protests, an American military pilot, Larry Douglas, approaches pretending she’s his date. The employee apologizes and, once outside, Larry tells Noelle to look for her customers elsewhere.
Noelle is shocked and plaintively replies, “I’m not a whore!”
Larry catches her arm as she tries to flee from him, leading her to a cozy restaurant where Noelle hungrily eats and tells him her story. That night begins a fairy-tale romance between them, after Noelle (without a place to go) goes home with Larry and quickly falls in love. But Larry cannot love and his feelings aren’t real. Before returning to America on military assignment, he tells Noelle to buy a wedding dress, naming a place and date to meet in Paris upon his return. But Larry knows he's not coming back.
When Larry doesn’t appear Noelle is devastated. She believes Larry died, but discovers he left another girl pregnant, as he has her. In a cold act of revenge against Larry’s child, she aborts it, vowing to become a famous actress so Larry will recognize her.
Through willpower Noelle succeeds. Working ruthlessly upward in society, she becomes an actress in more ways than one, discarding and using lovers as Larry did. Noelle is now sophisticated and wealthy enough to hire a detective to track Larry’s whereabouts and keeps secret track of him for years.
Catherine meets Larry in the States, but dislikes him and calls him fake. Her boldness attracts him and eventually they marry. Noelle’s emotions degrade further into retribution and obsession.
Revenge
Noelle is with Constantin Demiris, a very powerful and wealthy man, and she inwardly lives on hate. When Larry cannot find work (the war is over and pilots aren’t in demand), Noelle hires Larry as her personal pilot.
Larry arrives at Dimiris’s villa in Greece but does not recognize embittered Noelle; too many years have passed. The disappointment is unbearable for Noelle, who treats her new pilot cruelly. Indeed, the former Noelle long ago died; the new Noelle seems nothing like her. But Noelle – faithful in her soul – emotionally breaks and resumes a scorching tryst.
Noelle shows Larry the aged wedding dress, recalling an innocent girl-child who once bought it waiting for her soldier to return. Threatening to tell Demiris about their affair, anti-hero Noelle demands marriage.
Afraid, Larry considers abandoning the now unhappy alcoholic Catherine, who keenly senses Larry’s unfaithfulness. He tries to leave Catherine in an underground cave hoping she’ll die, but changes his mind. Paranoid, Catherine flees from her husband during a vicious storm, hiding in a rowboat that sweeps her to sea.
Noelle is accused of murder and Demiris visits Noelle in prison with powerful legal connections. If Noelle confesses to killing Catherine, she’ll only receive six months imprisonment, but must promise never to see Larry again.
When Noelle follows Demiris’s advice, once again man betrays her trust. The judge instead sentences Noelle and her lover to execution by firing squad. Noelle turns her face around to look at Dimiris, who is smiling.
Noelle is dressed in a white wedding dress on the morning of her execution, serene and calm. When the priest reads the last rites, a light passes over her face. She refuses to have her eyes covered and will instead look up toward heaven. One is reminded of the very first scene in the movie, before it goes into flashbacks: when questioned whether or not she is guilty, Noelle firmly replies, innocent. One senses she means her soul.
Noelle was a young and exploited victim of selfish, ruthless men until she became narcissistic enough to survive. Although Catherine’s life is more honorable, she never had to face Noelle’s moral trials. It’s difficult not to take sides or wonder if there aren't two heroines.
This story reflects the male Madonna-whore complex, using Noelle as perfect woman, both saint and sin; the book even mentions her perfect omelets. The story acutely portrays deep female pain behind a contemporary issue so rarely addressed, including the hidden sexual indignity so destructive to the female psyche.
Catherine is later found alive by nuns. This gives the film happier closure, but the book ends differently. Catherine, final victim of sociopathic Larry, is now insane and Dimitris is paying well-meaning nuns to keep her (and his secret) at the isolated convent forever.
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