As a longtime fan of Out of the Past I was disappointed when I finally saw Tourneur's "other" noir film. Despite excellent cinematography and several good scenes, the movie is sunk by a poor leading man and a hopelessly flawed story. For the latter you can't blame Stirling Silliphant. His script is unusually faithful to the source novel, and therein lies the problem.
Noir novelist David Goodis wrote a handful of bleak, pulpy novels published mostly during the 1950s. "Dark Passage" and "Shoot the Piano Player" are two other Goodis movie adaptations. Goodis' novels are tough, fatalistic, and violent with interesting premises and oddball characters, especially the bad guys. His problems, which worsened over time, were a reliance on outrageous coincidence and a tendency to have characters suddenly act in bizarre ways to make the story work out. These flaws lay at the heart of Nightfall's problems.
Ordinary guy Jim Vanning (Aldo Ray) and his doctor friend (Frank Albertson) are out hunting when they witness an auto crash. They run to help only to discover two robbers fleeing a bank job. The crooks let the doctor patch them up, then kill him. But instead of shooting Vanning too, they concoct the preposterous notion of handing him a loaded rifle and ordering him to kill himself to set up an apparent murder-suicide. Naturally this gives Vanning a fighting chance. Unfortunately it doesn't pan out. Vanning is shot anyway. As the robbers escape in his car they pull the hoariest stunt in the book: they pick up the doctor's bag instead of the bag containing the loot. Vanning recovers (not dead, just stunned) and flees with the money. But somewhere in his flight he loses the bag. The crooks return to find Vanning and the money gone. The chase is on.
The premise is appealing: the crooks hound Vanning to tell them where the money is but he really doesn't know. However the episodic narrative is strung together by coincidences and lapses of logic, beginning with the woman Vanning picks up in a bar (Anne Bancroft), who throws in with him for no discernible reason other than to provide someone for the crooks to menace. The crooks themselves (Brian Keith and Rudy Bond) have interesting conflicting personalities, but their disagreements always seem to arise just in time to save Vanning's neck. An interesting subplot involves an insurance investigator (James Gregory) who has been secretly shadowing Vanning. We learn more about his character than that of anyone else in the cast, but he ends up having little to do with the story's outcome.
The final strike against Nightfall is delivered by Aldo Ray. As written Jim Vanning is basically an ordinary guy in way over his head, so scared that he jumps when a newsie suddenly turns on the lights of his newsstand. Vanning tells us he's frightened and weary. Unfortunately Aldo Ray is beefy and tough-looking. His raspy voice, which seems to get even more gravelly in flashbacks, combines with his features to give the impression he could tie the robbers into pretzels without breaking a sweat. Alas, appearance is all in movies, and Ray lacks the acting chops to make us believe this bruiser is an underdog.
In conclusion I would recommend Nightfall as a technical exercise--it sure looks good--but there isn't enough substance to make a satisfying movie.
Noir novelist David Goodis wrote a handful of bleak, pulpy novels published mostly during the 1950s. "Dark Passage" and "Shoot the Piano Player" are two other Goodis movie adaptations. Goodis' novels are tough, fatalistic, and violent with interesting premises and oddball characters, especially the bad guys. His problems, which worsened over time, were a reliance on outrageous coincidence and a tendency to have characters suddenly act in bizarre ways to make the story work out. These flaws lay at the heart of Nightfall's problems.
Ordinary guy Jim Vanning (Aldo Ray) and his doctor friend (Frank Albertson) are out hunting when they witness an auto crash. They run to help only to discover two robbers fleeing a bank job. The crooks let the doctor patch them up, then kill him. But instead of shooting Vanning too, they concoct the preposterous notion of handing him a loaded rifle and ordering him to kill himself to set up an apparent murder-suicide. Naturally this gives Vanning a fighting chance. Unfortunately it doesn't pan out. Vanning is shot anyway. As the robbers escape in his car they pull the hoariest stunt in the book: they pick up the doctor's bag instead of the bag containing the loot. Vanning recovers (not dead, just stunned) and flees with the money. But somewhere in his flight he loses the bag. The crooks return to find Vanning and the money gone. The chase is on.
The premise is appealing: the crooks hound Vanning to tell them where the money is but he really doesn't know. However the episodic narrative is strung together by coincidences and lapses of logic, beginning with the woman Vanning picks up in a bar (Anne Bancroft), who throws in with him for no discernible reason other than to provide someone for the crooks to menace. The crooks themselves (Brian Keith and Rudy Bond) have interesting conflicting personalities, but their disagreements always seem to arise just in time to save Vanning's neck. An interesting subplot involves an insurance investigator (James Gregory) who has been secretly shadowing Vanning. We learn more about his character than that of anyone else in the cast, but he ends up having little to do with the story's outcome.
The final strike against Nightfall is delivered by Aldo Ray. As written Jim Vanning is basically an ordinary guy in way over his head, so scared that he jumps when a newsie suddenly turns on the lights of his newsstand. Vanning tells us he's frightened and weary. Unfortunately Aldo Ray is beefy and tough-looking. His raspy voice, which seems to get even more gravelly in flashbacks, combines with his features to give the impression he could tie the robbers into pretzels without breaking a sweat. Alas, appearance is all in movies, and Ray lacks the acting chops to make us believe this bruiser is an underdog.
In conclusion I would recommend Nightfall as a technical exercise--it sure looks good--but there isn't enough substance to make a satisfying movie.