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.

Atmospheric early Goodis adaptation. - Nightfall review by Steve

Nightfall 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 bad luck. It is glamourised a little for the screen, but is still subdued, like a mournful ballad.  

Aldo Ray tells the story with a catch in his voice like a corny torch singer, a sentimental guy with no luck at all. 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 heavies.

There are also enjoyable support performances from Anne Bancroft as a model he picks up in a bar and James Gregory as a resourceful detective chasing up the stolen loot.  Stirling Silliphant's screenplay conveys the weariness of Goodis' writing and the threadbare lives of his characters.  

Nightfall is mostly set in Los Angeles and the oil fields of California, but it 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 character by snowplough must be unique in cinema! This is a stylish film and one of the great LA noirs.