Thursday 13 August 2015

Nightfall (1956 rel '57 Jacques Tourneur)

Not a noir - as the 'Columbia Film Noir' box set would have us believe - in fact there's a good argument that the genre was already over with The Big Heat in 1953.

More a straight thriller involving stolen loot left Fargo-like in the snows of Wyoming, and an innocent man and girl (Brain Keith and Anne Bancroft) pursued by psychotic killers (Aldo Ray and Rudy Bond), with sympathetic insurance man James Gregory hot in pursuit.

Interesting that its flashbacks are introduced by a straight cut rather than the sort of optical effect that old Hollywood was used to. Otherwise doesn't have the distinctive touches that Tourneur brought to the Lewton-RKO horrors.

Exciting climax with snow plough.

David Goodis (Dark Passage, Tirez sur le Pianiste) novel adapted by Stirling Silliphant. Shot by Burnett Guffey and scored by Charles Durning.

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