Rent Nightfall (1956)

Terrific movie... - Nightfall review by SM

It was sooo refreshing to have a chance to view this film....nowadays there are just the same movies being shown on an almost daily repeat on the television.

Terrific plot,great acting and a tense storyline....would really recommend this dvd.

Noir Atmospherics. - Nightfall review by Steve

This is an adaptation of a novel by one of hardboiled fiction's most pessimistic writers, David Goodis, a poet of impoverished lives ruined by dumb misfortune. It is glamourised a little for the screen, but is still subdued, like a sad, heartbreak ballad.  

Aldo Ray tells the story with a catch in his voice like a corny torch singer; a sentimental ill fated deadbeat. He is being tracked by a pair of relentless killers convinced he has pocketed the loot from their bank raid. Rudy Bond and Brian Keith are a fine double act as the menacing heavies.

There are relishable support performances from Anne Bancroft as the low rent model Aldo Ray picks up in a bar and James Gregory as a resourceful detective chasing up the stolen money.  Stirling Silliphant's screenplay conveys the weariness of Goodis' prose and the threadbare lives of his characters.  

It is mostly set in Los Angeles and the oil fields of California, but concludes in the winter snowdrifts of Wyoming. Like On Dangerous Ground the film contrasts the dirty city with white rural snowscapes. The death of a villain by snowplough must be unique in cinema! This stylish film is one of the classic LA noirs.