Nonureva Really Surprised!

Cortechba Overrated

Roy Hart If you're interested in the topic at hand, you should just watch it and judge yourself because the reviews have gone very biased by people that didn't even watch it and just hate (or love) the creator. I liked it, it was well written, narrated, and directed and it was about a topic that interests me.

Michelle Ridley The movie is wonderful and true, an act of love in all its contradictions and complexity

jarrodmcdonald-1 Nightfall is an essential film for fans of Aldo Ray. In most of his pictures, Mr. Ray is fresh and he's real, though not an overly studied actor like many of his peers. He puts his entire personality into the roles he plays without artifice. When the Columbia honchos cast him with more stage-trained costars (Anne Bancroft, Brian Keith and James Gregory) like they have done in this picture, the result is a truly interesting set of dynamics and interplay.The story is told mainly in flashback and the pacing is fairly brisk. Several breaks from the action occur with the characters reflecting on what has happened in the recent past and on what is about to happen in the immediate future. The outdoor winter scenes are truly breathtaking, especially the climactic ending where our hero battles a bad guy on a runaway snowplow.

blanche-2 The wonderful Jacques Tourneur directed this 1957 noir, "Nightfall," starring Aldo Ray, Anne Bancroft, Brian Keith, James Gregory, and Frank Albertson.James Vanning (Aldo Ray) is on the run from some vicious criminals who have stolen a fortune from a bank. He and his doctor friend (Frank Albertson) had the misfortune to meet these men, who took the doctor bag instead of the $350 grand they stole! They believe that Ray, an innocent party, knows where in the Wyoming mountains the money is.Back in the city, Vanning meets a model (Bancroft) and this is picked up by two of the crooks. He manages to get away and goes to Bancroft's place; since the thugs know who she is, the two of them have to go on the run.Tourneur's themes here are similar to his other films, such as "Cat People," "Out of the Past," "Experiment Perilous" as three examples: Chance meetings and coincidence dominate a story where Tourneur uses flashbacks expertly. Here, two innocent people are drawn into a situation and being pursued.Very absorbing story -- in her early films, beautiful Anne Bancroft, a powerful actress, was cast in these young leading lady or ingenue roles, like Bette Davis when she first came to Warners. Bancroft brings an interesting, smoky quality to the role of a woman who has an unhappy past with men. Aldo Ray has never been a favorite of mine, but he is effective here. He looks like a character actor, though he played leads, and though he has a husky voice and appearance, there's a gentle quality in his manner. James Gregory has always been good, and he's good here as a detective who wants to get down to the truth.The black and white photography is very striking and really adds to the film. Jacques Tourneur made some excellent films; though he obviously didn't have a huge budget for this one and his star had descended somewhat, he still had what it took to make a strong film.

tieman64 With the much publicised visit of French existentialists (Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Camus, Simone de Beauvoir, Maurice Merleau-Ponty etc) to New York City after World War 2, a specific form of existentialism was popularised in the United States. Some of these philosophers also brought with them a series of books (Nausea, The Stanger, Journey to the End of Night, No Exit, The Irrational Man), most of which now read like film noir tales, complete with stark noir titles.The noir genre is itself deeply existential. Pessimistic, fatalistic, nihilistic, morbid and with themes of alienation, anxiety, indeterminism and the absurd, your typical noir plot sees an ordinary, working class guy pushed around by seemingly conspiratorial forces. Some noir heroes try to carve their way out of this web, but most succumb.By now many know all the great noir classics. One that tends to slip through the cracks is Jacques Tourneur's "Nightfall", an excellent film released in 1957, toward the end of the noir cycle. Today some of Tourneur's films are still well regarded - "Cat People", "Wichita", "I Walked With a Zombie", "Night of the Demon", the latter oft praised by Martin Scorsese – but "Nightfall" is typically overlooked in favour of Tourneur's other noir, "Out of the Past"."Nightfall" opens with a strong first act. Here Tourneur treats us to some wonderfully atmospheric locations (sidewalks, bus stops, bars – the transitory spaces of noir), in which world weary strangers meet, rub shoulders and trade witty ripostes.Our noir hero? James Vanning, a commercial artist played by Aldo Ray. Vanning's one of noir's strangest saps. He's a bear of a man, broad shouldered and tough looking. But Ray's voice and mannerisms don't quite fit Vanning's body; he's gentle, his acting is far more naturalistic than was customary for the era, and his voice is quiet and raspy. A gentle guy with the body of an ox, Vanning's ungainliness is epitomised by the awkward strands of hair which keep popping up on the crown of his head. He just can't quite keep things together. The rest of the film sees Vanning trapped in another of noir's overly elaborate plots, the poor guy hunted by both the cops and a series of crooks.Unusual for a noir, "Nightfall" slowly trades concrete and cityscapes for vast, snow-capped Wyoming landscapes. In this way it resembles Nicholas Ray's "On Dangerous Group". Its plot, meanwhile, anticipates "Charley Varrick" and the Coen Brothers' "No Country For Old Men". Anne Bancroft plays a femme fatale turned sympathetic accomplice.8/10 – Underrated, but can't live up to its strong first act. See "Out of the Past" and Joseph Losey's "The Prowler".

buff-29 Aside from some of the black-and-white photography and a sexy turn by Jocelyn Brando, there is nothing interesting about this movie. The "plot" is one stupid contrivance after another, all adding up to pretty much nothing. The sappy, dippy happy ending ("and they all went to the seashore") denies it any standing as a "noir" film, never mind a "noir masterwork" like the clunks at Film Forum in New York call it. It is kind of fun to see a really good print of one of these old clunkers, but I can't help wondering why anybody bothered. Now I am wondering why I bothered to write this review; maybe to keep just one person from wasting a trip down to Houston St.