Out In The 1950s Crime Noir Night- Aldo Ray’s “Nightfall”- A Review

Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for the crime noir Nightfall.


DVD Review

Nightfall, starring Aldo Ray, Anne Bancroft, Brian Keith, Columbia Pictures, 1957

As always there are crime noirs and there are crime noirs. Big time ones like The Big Sleep, The Lady From Shang-hai and The Killers (early Burt Lancaster version) and small time one like the film under review, Nightfall, from the 1950s. Some have wicked femme fatale like said Lady and other just gals down on their luck, or, if you can believe this, not even femme fatales but, like here with the Anne Bancroft role, gals who aren’t even down on their luck and can pay their own tab. What makes this one a cut above some other lesser crime noir efforts though is not femme fatales, great plotline, some nice outdoor cinematic shots, or anything like that but two very, very stone-cold killers who keep the film moving along with their manic antics.

As to plot, Aldo Ray, just a regular guy as is his usual role in most of his films, and his doctor buddy are off in the wilds of Wyoming (from the Windy City, natch) catching up on nature and such when their luck runs out. A couple of wise guy big time bank robbers ,our stone-cold killers, led by one Brian Keith, have an slipshod car accident out on those Great Plains roads and our friendly campers try to help. And for their get helped to death, almost. Our boy Aldo survives but he has to go on the lam because everybody thinks he offed his friend. But here is the funny plot twist part. In the process of attempting to off the potential witnesses (our campers) our stone-colds “forget” the dough, the three hundred Gs dough. And guess who has it, or who they think has it. Ya, you have got it.

And the love interest? Come on now this is a 1950s noir, and you can’t not have that tangle angle Oh ya, that is provided by one fetching Ms. Bancroft, a store model who makes the serious mistake of asking for a loan from Aldo at, well, a bar okay. And for her “mistake” she gets caught up in way more than she bargained for, bargained for initially anyway. But the real deal is to keep your eyes on those bad-ass stone-killers because they are relentless. Let’s put it this way if you owe either of these guys dough, or even think about owing them dough, I would put newspaper on the floor around my bed just to be on the safe side. Got it.