User Reviews

Someday, this taut little noir will be acknowledged as the blueprint --- unconscious or not --- for Alfred Hitchcock's and Ernie Lehman's "North by Northwest." NxNW, released 2 years after Nightfall, features a number of strange similarities to Nightfall, too many to be considered coincidental.

For starters ---

1.) Both films have protagonists who are "kidnapped" by hoods, and it appears that there are cases of mistaken identity or misunderstood information in both situations.

2.) Both protagonists fight off the hoods and escape in a car.

3.) Both protagonists appear to have been set up at some point by a beautiful femme fatale.

4.) Both protagonists return to the femme fatale to demand an explanation.

All right, perhaps one could argue that these 4 similarities are merely coincidental, or "standard thriller fodder." But wait -- there's more ! Both films also feature:

5.) An older, paternal "watchdog" or "shadow" who is aware of the problems of the hero, watches from afar, and yet eventually becomes involved in the chase process.

6.) A shaving scene in a public washroom --- played for tension and then comic effect in NxNW, but as an opportunity for the older "shadow" to chat with the hero in Nightfall.

7.) A scene in which the hero buys a ticket (bus in Nightfall, train in NxNW) in order to get to the bottom of the mystery.

In both scenes, the whereabouts or destination of the hero is revealed to the pertinent authorities who are present at the stations. Also in both scenes --- we see the hero mostly head-on, to the left of the scene, while we see the ticket clerk mostly from the back, to the right part of the scene.

8.) Romance and smooching between the hero and the femme fatale during a cross-country trip --- by train in NxNW, and by bus in Nightfall.

9.) Chicago plays a major role in both movies.

....and perhaps most revealing of all......

10.) A very public scene in which both the hero and the purported femme fatale are placed in danger with the bad guys. Tension and comedy both are played out in each scene. There is even a "voice-over" in each scene --- the voice of the auctioneer in NxNW, and the voice of the fashion show emcee in Nightfall.

IMDb poster hisgrandmogulhighness has uncovered these other similarities, some present in the original book Nightfall, by David Goodis, and some present in the movie Nightfall as well ---

11.) Hero in Nightfall is named Vanning; villain in NxNW is named VanDamm.

12.) Both men, Vanning and Thornhill, through widely different circumstances, are wanted for murder . . . both, indirectly, cause the death of the victims . . . both, for whatever reason, leave the murder weapon at the scene of the crime, and, most conveniently for law enforcement, leave their fingerprints all over the murder weapon . . .

13.) (In the book Nightfall and in the movie NxNW): Both men, Vanning & Thornhill, have a liquid forced down their respective throats in the houses the thugs have taken them.

14.) (In the book Nightfall and in the movie NxNW): Both Vanning and Thornhill are in hotel rooms they're not registered for . . .While leaving the hotels, both are followed out by thugs, or a thug . . .Both are in taxicabs looking at the back of the head of the taxi driver . .

15.) In the book "Nightfall," James Vanning is already using an alias, "Rayburn." In NxNW Thornhill takes on the trappings of the non-existent "Kaplan."

16.) . . . trout shows up in both works . . .

Once you've watched both movies, these numerous plot similarities will become evident. The sheer number of plot similarities indicates that it is likely that Sir Alfred and / or Ernie Lehman used Nightfall as a skeleton, onto which they fashioned their masterpiece, NxNW.

The fact that Nightfall has been out of the public eye for 40 years or so may explain why no one has yet caught up with one of the main sources of NxNW.

Enjoy !

(AJD)

I wonder if Jacques Tourneur's "Nightfall" was a kind of influence on the Coen Brothers' "Fargo". It features quirky crooks and flawed characters stumbling about in a frozen wilderness in search of loot. Sure, this is not as wry as "Fargo", but I wonder. One thing's for sure...both films capture the essence of a snowy rural locale well. "Fargo" had death by wood chipper, "Nightfall" has death by snowplow...

Another reviewer made an astute connection to "On Dangerous Ground". I wouldn't put this on the emotional level of that wonderful film, but it does effectively contrast the cold dark city with the cold white space of the countryside.

The story unfolds in a series of flashbacks related by the singularly unlucky James Vanning, our hero. Vanning's luck is sure lousy, as he becomes the victim of a series of terrible coincidences and bad timing (as one of the hoods, Red, gleefully points out). It seems that while on a winter fishing trip with good pal Doc, Vanning comes to the rescue of two gents whose car crashes in a canyon. Unfortunately for Vanning and Doc, the duo, John and Red, are dangerous felons fleeing a bank robbery. John is the laconic brains of the outfit while Red is a jovial sadist itching for the kill. Before we know it, Doc is gunned down and Vanning is left for dead, while John and Red take off with what they think is a bag containing $350,000. But it isn't, it's Doc's bag...and the still-living Vanning stumbles into the snow in a daze with the real swag.

Circumstances are such that Vanning is now hunted as the murderer of Doc. The bag of money is laying out in the wilderness where Vanning left it. Vanning is forced to hit the road and change his name to avoid capture. Hot on his tail is amiable insurance investigator Ben Frazier, who suspects Vanning might be innocent. But to make things worse, John and Red also catch up with Vanning...and they're prepared to do whatever's necessary to get their money back.

The chase is on, with Vanning trying to elude the sadistic thugs as well as Frazier, while also romancing Marie, a sultry model who offers him shelter.

Beautiful cinematography is a given in any Tourneur film and the direction here is as top notch as ever. Strong performances and crisp dialog also make an impact. Aldo Ray wound up as a drunken hack in terrible films later in his career, but here he makes a rugged yet vulnerable Vanning. It's one of his best roles. The wonderful James Gregory is appealing as always as Frazer...what a terrific character actor he is. Anne Bancroft is most attractive as Marie, though I never shook the feeling she was a token female stuck in the movie for a tacked on romance.

As with just about any film, the bad guys really dominate. Brian Keith's John is a most peculiar bad guy...laid back, very reasonable sounding, yet something about him suggests this is a very dangerous man capable of great violence. That comes through best when he hauls a captive Vanning to an oil derrick and threatens to kill him with some of the derrick's huge machinery. In contrast, Rudy Bond as Red is a chuckling backslapping type who just happens to be a bloodthirsty killer. The scene where he casually, almost apologetically sets up Doc's murder and Vanning's "suicide" is chilling. The dynamic between these two is really strong and explodes into conflict at the end.

Not everything clicks. I found it pretty amazing that the bag of loot would sit out in the Wyoming winter countryside in the same place for so long. Even in remote areas, hunters often wander and wild animals could have taken the bag,too. Not too mention it should have been under a snowdrift. As mentioned before, the relationship between Vanning and Marie also seems artificial. And the plot of the show, while clever, is far from revolutionary. I can think of many crime dramas with more action and firepower.

But it all works out pretty well. I was gripped by the whole show and the final showdown is pretty intense, ending up in one of the most gruesome deaths in 50's cinema.

Well worth your time.

You probably have seen the 1947 noir classic Out of the Past directed by Jacques Tourneur. Almost a decade later he attempted to duplicate the success of that picture but didn't even come close with Nightfall--a film which lacks the requisite dark cinematography usually associated with the film noir genre.

The hero here is an Army vet, James "Jim" Vanning (Aldo Ray) who it soon becomes clear is in a hell of a lot of trouble with the law and has been flitting about the country using assumed names. We learn how he got into trouble in a series of flashbacks. He and a doctor pal were on a camping trip up in Wyoming when they were waylaid by two criminals, John (Brian Keith) and Red (Rudy Bond), who just successfully stole $350,000 in a bank robbery.

Red brutally kills Jim's pal in cold blood and orders Jim to kill himself with his own rifle to make it look like a murder-suicide. When Jim balks, Red shoots but the bullet only grazes his skull, knocking him out. Somehow the two thugs end up mistaking the doctor pal's bag for their own black bag which contains the loot and after leaving the scene and discovering their mistake, they return to where they left Jim, only to find that he's run off with their money.

You really have to suspend your disbelief that these criminals would be so stupid to leave their ill-gotten gains behind after murdering one man and leaving another one for dead. But that's what happens. Later the two catch up with Jim and bring him to a deserted area where they begin to brutalize their beleaguered victim, attempting to find out what became of their money.

But Jim insists he can't remember-that he somehow lost the bag after escaping from the two bad guys back up there in Wyoming. Again (and this occurs in the present time), Jim (despite being held at gunpoint) manages to escape from John and Red, another hard to believe turn of events.

Jim ends up being aided by fashion model Marie Gardner (Anne Bancroft, in an early film role). Bancroft and Ray have virtually no chemistry together and one wonders why Marie falls for Jim, who is wanted by the police for murdering his camping buddy after Red shoots the doctor with Jim's rifle.

A subplot involves Insurance Investigator Ben Fraser (James Gregory) who has been hot on Jim's tail, tasked with recovering the stolen loot for his insurance company. Fraser eventually figures out that Jim is completely innocent but during the climax has nothing to do, after being tired up (along with Marie) by Red, leaving Jim to save the day.

Ray, usually known for more tough guy roles, plays the poor schlub who finally dispatches Red after pushing him into the path of an out of control snowplow. Brian Keith as John has the lesser of the two bad roles, depicted as a somewhat reticent criminal but Rudy Bond as Red shines in the best part in the film playing a truly scary psychopath with a chilling laugh.

Nightfall ends up as a pedestrian chase picture with the bad guys trying to catch the errant couple , characterized by their (previously alluded to) lack of chemistry.

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".

One thing about actor Aldo Ray. To me, his craggy voice disqualified him forever from being the leading man type in films. This 1957 film is absolutely no exception to that rule.

He goes hunting with a doctor and they are set upon by bank thieves, who kill the doctor and run off in error with his bag instead of their bag containing the money they had stolen from a bank heist.

To make matters worse for Ray, they had tried to concoct where Ray shot the doctor and then killed himself.

A very young and beautiful Anne Bancroft is caught up in all this and the two guys seek out Ray, since they feel he has stolen the money.

This film takes place mostly in Moose, Wyoming and the outdoors is a perfect setting for this rather taut crime thriller.

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.