NIGHTFALL (1956)

This Columbia Pictures release stars Aldo Ray, James Gregory, Anne Bancroft, and Brian Keith. Rudy Bond has a standout role, one of several films he made, three of which starred Marlon Brando. His sister, Jocelyn Brando, plays Gregory’s wife. This fits into the little-known “B+ movie” category because of top-notch performances, solid cinematography, and direction by Jacques Tourneur. His use of seamless flashbacks provides the most interesting segments of this film. However, despite his success with Out of the Past, Tourneur’s directing here can be a little uneven. One cannot fault the studio art department for pumping up the promotion of this seventy-nine-minute film---note the yellow teaser text in the poster.

I found Stirling Silliphant’s script ponderous at times. Many segments go by slowly with a lot of character development dialogue. It took a while to figure out what was up with Ray's character, whether he was innocent or guilty of something. His incessant vague comments about the source of his troubles barely squeeze through. The homey scenes with Gregory revealing to his wife how his insurance investigation is progressing ate up a lot of film for a character we do not need to know that much background. Then, Keith’s extended cat-and-mouse verbal threatening of Ray is also a frame eater. Thankfully, flashbacks make sense of why Ray is being hunted, how he, Keith, and Bond collided, and why the latter two cannot find their stolen loot.

I was not buying “truck-driving” Ray as a freelance commercial artist. I could have supported Bancroft as a Montgomery-Ward catalog model, though not a high fashion model. The novel that the film is based on may be the culprit. Bancroft's first appearance with Ray in a local bar is also a wee cumbersome until thieves and noir-do-wells, Keith and Bond, enter the picture. Their abduction of Ray was not a huge surprise, who thinks Bancroft set him up. 

Keith once again seems to be holding himself back from a sudden outburst of violence. A one-dimensional character played well with clamped jaw. But Bond...Rudy Bond, (second from left above) steals the film as the sadist who enjoys killing people by games of [no] chance. His laugh from an individual with a screw loose upstairs. I imagine him watching Wile E. Coyote cartoons endlessly―as an adult―always laughing hysterically at every pratfall, however repetitive. His demise is well worth waiting for. Then, there is a lot of waiting in this film. Waiting for Ray and Bancroft to become an item. Waiting for Gregory to explain himself to Ray. Waiting for Keith and Bond to come to an understanding and waiting for that snowplow to make itself useful.