The suspense is sustained all the way to the last fall, and Hitchcock couldn't have made it better. It's an amazing maze of inrtigue, the protagonists themselves not really knowing what is going on, while the only one who knows everything doesn't say anything, as he has practically given up as deepest down in the mess. Only Anne Bancroft brightens up this very dark and hopeless situation constantly getting worse, and in addition she is here young and beautiful, especially when dressing up and acting for a fashion show. This is really the best scene of the film. Aldo Ray is credible enough as an all too honest victim resigned to the fact that he actaully can do nothing about the hopeless situation, while the gangsters are truly awful, the laughing one making himself even more abominable than Richard Widmark.The greatest asset of the film is the brilliant script, though. It's impossible all the time to guess what will happen next, as the whole film is a charade of surprises. But don't worry. In the end you will find that it all fitted together after all.

Aldo Ray is being followed. Is he wanted by the law? Is he a criminal? Has he killed somebody? James Gregory is watching him and talks to him on the street corner trying to make casual conversation. Who is James Gregory? What does he want with Aldo Ray? Brian Keith and partner are also following Aldo. They obviously look like real bad guys. Anne Bancroft is introduced into the mix, but is it innocent? Does she have ulterior motives? Who can Aldo trust? By way of a flashbacks we see him and friend Frank Albertson (who's a doctor) on a fishing trip. When a car goes out of control and off the road, the doctor aids the hurt Brian Keith and they find out that they stole money and now they know too much. Aldo obviously gets away and due to a mistake they made (in leaving the money behind), they have to find Aldo and their money. With excellent use of time and place; good character actors; and good use of their environment in telling the story, we feel we are there ourselves and really sympathize for Aldo and the characters become so real and well defined that I felt I knew them all. The viewer never second guesses the film, as it plays out very logically and realistically and does not suspend disbelief. Nothing but praise for this short little film long on entertainment.

The intensity of the action, superb direction, astonishing juxtaposition of the city sequences and scenes in the tranquil, snow-filled countryside, and - probably most of all - the many hardboiled dialogues present Nightfall as a truly expressive film noir. Through a clever use of retrospectives the film introduces the audience to James Vanning (Aldo Ray), whose life story is as tragic as it is suspenseful. James wanders around town anxiously, looking as though he's waiting for someone the whole time. After his meeting with a lovely lady named Marie (Anne Bancroft) turns into a gritty kidnapping intrigue, all the pieces of the puzzle soon start to fit right in. A pair of thugs is after him, because they think that he hid the money (350,000 dollars to be exact), which they stole during a bank raid. In order to get the information out of him they try torturing him, but James ultimately manages to escape. As he returns to meet the lady, who supposedly gave him away to the criminals, brief retrospections appear on the screen, and entangle us in the whole obscure and dramatic affair. When James and his friend Dr. Gurston (Frank Albertson) were in the middle of a hunting trip they encountered a car crash and quickly realize that they the guys, whom they wanted to help, are nothing but a couple of violent robbers. They kill Dr. for their great amusement, but leave James only unconscious. When he wakes up, he realizes that what they also left behind was a bag with the cash. Soon a thrilling and fast-paced game of cat-and- mouse begins, as both the thugs and a private investigator Fraser (James Gregory) are on his trail. With the help of the previously met lady, James decides to stop the killers and retrieve the money-filled bag, which he left somewhere in the snowy country...Nightfall is an enormously moody, sombre, and hard-hitting crime drama, which achieves high level of aesthetics through the sudden yet suitable changes of scenery, overcoming some of its screenplay-related faults in the process. The shootout in the secluded, wild place is a great advantage of the film, giving it a totally different perspective than other films in the genre have. It's a low-budget, extremely economical yet successful adaptation of a 1947 novel of the same name.

Nightfall (1957)A late noir and a really good one. It has some awkward moments that almost seem to have come after the fact, or from running out of money, because the rest of the film, and the best of it, is superb. It's a widescreen black and white affair, set in an unnamed (I think) big city and in wilderness Wyoming.It's no surprise that director Jacques Tourneur makes a dark, brooding movie with unusual location shooting. Much of it is day for night stuff, but well done (very dark) and certainly adding to both the oil well scene and the stuff out in the Teton Mountains. The acting is gritty, with an edgy modernism that isn't quite visible in 1940s noirs, as rough as they sometimes get in effect.There were two surprises for me here, though, good ones. The first is the actor in the lead, Aldo Ray, who I'd never heard of. He might come off as just a football player with a husky voice and a lot of composure, but in fact he struck me as perfectly suited for the innocent accused. He is in a predicament, and exactly how he got there doesn't matter at first. You just feel for his situation, and become increasingly sympathetic to him.The other surprise is just seeing Ann Bancroft in the leading female role. She had been in the movies (and television) for less than a decade, and she takes on a slightly different kind of woman, not a sultry femme fatale and not someone who is just going to do what she's told. We end up rooting for her, as well.The cinematographer Burnett Guffey was top notch, having shot "In a Lonely Place" and "From Here to Eternity" among others. But the film isn't up to snuff in other ways somehow. The plot itself is a bit of a device, improbable at moments where it didn't have to be, but without irony, just plain stretching it thin and fast. Tourneur was on a long slide in his career (though a cult classic of his, "Curse of the Demon," was due out in a few months), and I think he is just a victim along with everyone in Hollywood of the 1950s nosedive due to t.v. and changing tastes.That said, there are so many things to like here, including a more modern feeling of noir sensibilities, it's a great movie to study, or to appreciate as much as get swept up in.