Nightfall (1957)

Director:

Jacques Tourneur

Writers:

Stirling Silliphant (screen play)
David Goodis (from the novel by)

Release Date:

13 May 1957 (Sweden)

Genre:

Crime | Drama | Film-Noir | Romance | Thriller

Tagline:

YOU COULD GO TO THE MOVIES EVERY DAY FOR FIVE YEARS---BEFORE YOU'D SEE ANOTHER PICTURE WITH SO MANY THRILLS AND SO MUCH SUSPENSE! (original print ad - all caps)

Plot:

Through a series of bizarre coincidences artist finds himself falsely accused of bank robbery and murder and is pursued by the authorities and the real killers.

Plot Keywords:

Murder | Model | Wyoming | Bank Robbery | Oil Well

Cast

Aldo Ray	...	James Vanning
Brian Keith	...	John
Anne Bancroft	...	Marie Gardner
Jocelyn Brando	...	Laura Fraser
James Gregory	...	Ben Fraser
Frank Albertson	...	Dr. Edward Gurston
Rudy Bond	...	Red
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Arline Anderson	...	Hostess (uncredited)
Monty Ash	...	Clerk (uncredited)
María Belmar	...	Spanish Woman (uncredited)
Orlando Beltran	...	Spanish Man (uncredited)
Art Bucaro	...	Cashier (uncredited)
Robert Cherry	...	Man on Bus with Radio (uncredited)
George Cisar	...	Bus Driver (uncredited)
Lillian Culver	...	Woman (uncredited)
Bess Flowers	...	Woman at Fashion Show (uncredited)
Joan Fotre	...	Model (uncredited)
Annabelle George	...	Model (uncredited)
Pat Jones	...	Model (uncredited)
Lillian Kassan	...	Model (uncredited)
Betty Koch	...	Model (uncredited)
Jane Lynn	...	Model (uncredited)
Eddie McLean	...	Taxi Driver (uncredited)
Gene Roth	...	Bartender (uncredited)
Walter Smith	...	Shoeshine Boy (uncredited)
Maya Van Horn	...	Woman (uncredited)
Winifred Waring	...	Fashion Commentator (uncredited)

Directed by
Jacques Tourneur

Writing credits
Stirling Silliphant		(screen play)
David Goodis		(from the novel by)

Produced by
Ted Richmond	....	producer

Original Music by
George Duning

Cinematography by
Burnett Guffey		(director of photography)

Film Editing by
William A. Lyon

Art Direction by
Ross Bellah

Set Decoration by
Louis Diage
William Kiernan

Costume Design by
Jean Louis		(gowns)

Makeup Department
Clay Campbell	....	makeup artist
Helen Hunt	....	hair stylist

Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Irving J. Moore	....	assistant director (as Irving Moore)

Sound Department
John P. Livadary	....	recording supervisor (as John Livadary)
Ferrol Redd	....	sound (as Ferol Redd)
Frank Bayes	....	sound editor (uncredited)
Ernest Reichert	....	sound editor (uncredited)

Camera and Electrical Department
Richard H. Kline	....	camera operator (uncredited)

Music Department
Arthur Morton	....	orchestrator
Morris Stoloff	....	conductor

Production Companies

• Copa Productions

Distributors

• Columbia Pictures (1957) (USA) (theatrical)
• GoodTimes Home Video (1991) (USA) (VHS) (pan and scan)
• Sony Pictures Home Entertainment (2010) (USA) (DVD) (Columbia Pictures Film Noir Classics, Vol. 2)

Other Companies

• Film Foundation, The  film preservation
• J.W.Robinson of California  fashion show (as J.W. Robinson Company of California)

Also Known As:

Runtime:

78 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English | Spanish

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Finland:K-16 | Sweden:15 | Norway:16

Filming Locations:

Los Angeles, California, USA

Company:

Copa Productions

Quotes:

James Vanning:Anyway, I'm scared. You don't know what it is to live with your back against the wall, Marie. Inside you change. You really change.

Movie Connections:

References The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (1953)

Soundtrack:

Nocturne Op. 9 No. 2

Another Wonderfully Inventive Film from Jacques Tourneur

Jacques Tourneur used his vast reserves of creativity to turn small-budget films into fascinating movie-going experiences. If "Out of the Past" is one of the best films noir to be released in the 1940s, then "Nightfall" must be one of the best from the succeeding decade.

Aldo Ray plays James Vanning, who, with his doctor friend Edward Gurston (Frank Albertson), finds himself in the wrong place at the wrong time and ends up knowing the whereabouts of a bag of stolen money, wanted mightily by two bank robbers (one played with droll relish by Brian Keith). Fate, always a principal character in any film noir, brings James together with Marie Gardner (an impossibly young Anne Bancroft), a fashion model who becomes his girl Friday. Meanwhile, an insurance investigator (James Gregory) working on behalf of the robbed bank has James's number and comes calling. All of these characters finally collide in a memorable and rather grisly ending.

"Nightfall" is tremendously stylish and playful. It very much resembles Tourneur's earlier noir, "Out of the Past," in its thesis that a man can run but never hide from his past. But it also reminded me of "On Dangerous Ground," Nicholas Ray's strange offering from 1952, in its juxtaposition of a shadow-filled urban environment filled with anonymous (and perhaps dangerous) strangers with the wide open (and no less frightening) spaces of the country, where anything can happen and no one will know. I don't know if Aldo Ray was considered a good actor at the time, but he does a terrific job here -- who better to play an American everyman caught up in a sticky web than this all-American jock of an actor? He and Bancroft sizzle in their scenes together, and one of the movie's highlights comes when they are racing away from one of Bancroft's fashion shows with the bad guys in hot pursuit, and Ray, frustrated by the fact that Bancroft can't run in the impractical gown she was just modeling, picks her up and runs with her into the safety of a cab, after which she leans against him and says, "You're the most wanted man I know." This scene and line got laughs and applause at the screening I attended, but you could tell that people were laughing with the film and not at it.

This film is one of the highlights of the noir genre, and I highly recommend catching it if you get a chance.

Grade: A