Nightfall (1957)dir. Jacques Tourneur
Based off of the book by David Goodis, this very late entry in the film noir canon and is a great little movie. Jacques Tourneur who gave us the noir cornerstone Out Of The Past (1947) delivers a tight running time of 75 minutes that has Aldo Ray running from everyone.
Ray plays a commercial artist who's goes on a sporting trip with a friend but ends up wanted by the cops for a murder he didn't commit and by the killers who think he has a suitcase full of their stolen cash. Brian Keith is great as one of the criminals and Anne Bancroft plays the woman he meets who isn't what she seems.
Told in a series of flashbacks, the film moves from the dark neon streets of the city to the bright white snow drenched fields of Wyoming. It's a tense thriller with a great climax and paranoia to spare.
It's well worth while and a surprise that it's not out yet, considering how many companies are releasing their noir catalogs with such frequency. The problem may be that it was released by Columbia Pictures, who doesn't seem to do much with lesser titles. I'm not sure if they own the DVD rights, but if they do a nice version with commentary by Alain Silver or Eddie Muller would be fantastic.
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