Nightfall (1957)
DVD5 | ISO+MDS | NTSC 16:9 | 01:18:54 | 2,82 Gb
Audio: English AC3 2.0 @ 192 Kbps | Subs: English SDH
Genre: Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
DVD5 | ISO+MDS | NTSC 16:9 | 01:18:54 | 2,82 Gb
Audio: English AC3 2.0 @ 192 Kbps | Subs: English SDH
Genre: Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
There is money missing from a bank job, an attractive model, an insurance investigator, and two extremely dangerous thugs. James Vanning (Aldo Ray) portrays an innocent man on the run, being pursued by the criminals who stupidly misplaced their take from the crime and think he has it or knows where it is hidden. Add model Marie Gardner (Anne Bancroft) who crossed paths with nice guy Vanning, while he is on the run. This all adds up to a thriller wherein the viewer is drawn into the story and becomes part of the drama. When Marie says "things that really happen are difficult to explain" it captures the theme of this film. A nice girl helps a nice guy, who is innocent and is drawn into the drama. As tension mounts she says: "I am always meeting the wrong man, and it leads to doomed relationships." Marie inadvertently leads Vanning into the hands of the villains. However…
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Jacques Tourneur is best known for his labyrinthine noir masterpiece Out of the Past and the sublime horror film The Cat People, but as is the case with plenty of the great directors of the forties and fifties, his lesser known works reveal a much more complicated picture of this consistently successful filmmaker. Nightfall is about as apt a title as is possible, from the dark lit opening in the neon streets of Los Angeles to the revelatory monologue in which the protagonist explains his anticipation for the future in terms of the shadows that fall on the city. The film's black and white photography is as striking as it is necessary, Tourneur often photographing in silhouette to render the environments into simple geometric shapes.
Nightfall's narrative is constructed in a similar fashion to Out of the Past, with a complicated and elusive protagonist having his past catch up with him, this time in the form of James Vanning (Aldo Ray) and his pursuers, a pair of bank robbers John (Brian Keith) and Red (Rudy Bond). Over the course of the first act James comes into contact with the beautiful and charming Marie Gardner (Anne Bancroft) but their budding relationship is stubbed out by the appearance of John and Red, both of whom represent themselves as authority figures sending Marie running for the hills. The two men take James out to the oil derricks, an image which has served film noir greatly, and threaten to kill him if he is not to give up the $350,000 dollars he's taken from them.
Whether or not he has the money is beside the point as he steadfastly denies knowledge of the loot's location, but John and Red are not so easily convinced. They begin to utilize the derrick in the most threatening possible way, breaking a thick wooden block in order to demonstrate the pain they are willing to inflict on James. This sequence is one of the most effective in the film, it is remarkably tense and conflicted while never tipping its hand. Shot in a stark contrast with the silhouettes against the tempestuous sky, the men's dilemma seems all the more palpable thanks to the heft that Tourneur imbues the scene with.
While Vanning is being abducted we are introduced to the stalwart Ben Fraser (James Gregory), an insurance investigator in typical noir fashion following the trail left by the bank robbery. He is assigned to trail after Vanning, watching him night after night until he believes he truly understands the man inside, even has a need to protect him. Fraser is shown with his wife discussing Vanning several times throughout the film, puzzling over his odd movements and confusing dedication to his average, every day occupation.
Vanning's seemingly paradoxical existence is the catalyst for Fraser's hand in the plot's development, and once Vanning escapes from the two men in a whirlwind scene in which he fights them off believably and authoritatively (a rare combination in film noir) it becomes obvious that the two are set to collide. But first Vanning finds himself at Marie's doorstep, brought to her like 'a homing pigeon' with no use for directions or the note he had written earlier. He begins questioning her about her involvement in his abduction, but once she realizes that the men who took him were not police she softens and agrees to come along with him to his apartment, away from the prying eyes of the two bank robbers.
Nightfall is essentially a companion piece to Out of the Past, unfolding partially in flash back where we come to understand the protagonist's mysterious past, but subverting our expectations along the way. Vanning is a much more agreeable sort than Mitchum's Bailey, and he is also decidedly straight-laced. His thoughts are never far from clearing his name and being free again, never touched by corruption in anyway, a trait some would attribute to his status as a veteran but I see as a deliberate step away from the typical brooding, ill-fated noir lead. The film is as fatalistic as can be, we watch with dread as Vanning comes under the thumb of the two men again and again, and although we know he's physically superior to them not only in size but also in ability, it is his charisma that is much more useful to him. As several characters describe him he is undeniably likable, and it is that descriptor that really does transfer to the big screen.
Tourneur uses almost everything at his disposal to electrify Nightfall's narrative, from the brilliant character acting from the underrated and underused Aldo Ray to the sweeping setting of the snowy banks of Wyoming. Vanning's difficulties are illustrated so completely by the complexities of Ray's expressions, his heavy brow only alleviated by the kind touch and soft word of Bancroft's Marie, a woman who seems lost without a man and who therefore throws herself head over heels into her relationship with James. Upon meeting her we find her unable to pay for her own drink in a dive bar, striking up a conversation in order to borrow enough money for her martini. But once she is given purpose, a purpose which James was reluctant to undertake, she becomes real, a very enthusiastic personality swept up in the fantastic elements of what she is involved in. That Tourneur shoots her with a very sympathetic lens, most notably in her modeling sequence, does little to subdue her believably empathetic and ultimately self-sacrificing (but not in the way you'd expect) performance.
Complaints have been lodged against the film's relatively conventional climax, an ending which to some seems artificial due to the relentless genre-bending Tourneur indulges in prior to the final ten minutes. However, I'd argue that the film's conclusion is much more organic than it appears upon first glance. The film pits the villains against each other and the victor of that argument against James, a conflict which ends in an incredibly violent but ultimately tasteful and satisfying way. Tourneur clearly keeps the demise of a main character in mind when introducing us to the Wyoming landscape which the climax takes place on, the camera slowly drifting over plowing equipment and the vast nothingness that surrounds them.
It is for this brief set of establishing shots that we have the natural progression that the ending does, in fact, possess. While it is a tidy ending which leaves little ambiguity in relation to the narrative, Tourneur is an exceptional enough director to know to maintain a strict ambiguity in relation to the character's motivations and ultimate fates. Few films of the era are as brutal or as tense, and for Tourneur to take on similar subject matter to what is generally regarded to be his masterpiece and come out with not only an entertaining film, but one that is bold, unique, and cleverly crafted, is undeniably a rare feat.
Special Features: Theatrical trailer
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