Just perfect...

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

The film is not a masterpiece and has many weak points, I will not call them, so I will not spoil the quest to watch it. Because even with some details strewn around which are unbelievable, the movie is pleasant and that's due thanks to the actors, they all do a really good job. The best thing in the whole movie is Anne Bancroft's character, which is the most credible. The very young and beautiful Anne Bancroft, the great actress with massive personality.

Aldo Ray, in case you didn't know, had 'it'. Big athletic tough guy with sensitive eyes and heart on both sleeves, and a sharp intelligence. In this noir he plays an artist pursued both by the cops and the crooks -- and Anne Bancroft leaps at the chance to hitch her wagon to the big lug with a nice face and trouble from all sides.Jaques Tourneur (Cat People, I Walked with a Zombie) directs with exceptional taste and restraint. All the actors are nicely human as they go through some pretty grisly stuff at a brisk pace.Brian Keith as the big bad guy plays him low-key and reasonable but not averse to torture if it works. Rudy Bond as his partner makes the wise-cracking sociopath genuinely funny thus ridiculously menacing.Ray is such a unique presence -- intuitive, always connected, soft raspy voice. He is in very good shape at this point in his career -- as is Bancroft -- a very interesting chemistry between them. Bancroft's take on the woman is grand -- he has her at hello, thus she's game for any number of perilous adventure to save him. Ray handles Sterling Siliphant's dialog with not one false move. 'Nice place. I'll try not to bleed over everything.' in lesser hands would be much lesser indeed. People who liked Ray (John Wayne et al.) liked him for his direct honesty -- which is probably why Hollywood knocked him around for a while without making him a huge star. And yeah the booze . . .

Nightfall is an essential film for fans of Aldo Ray. In most of his pictures, Mr. Ray is fresh and he's real, though not an overly studied actor like many of his peers. He puts his entire personality into the roles he plays without artifice. When the Columbia honchos cast him with more stage-trained costars (Anne Bancroft, Brian Keith and James Gregory) like they have done in this picture, the result is a truly interesting set of dynamics and interplay.The story is told mainly in flashback and the pacing is fairly brisk. Several breaks from the action occur with the characters reflecting on what has happened in the recent past and on what is about to happen in the immediate future. The outdoor winter scenes are truly breathtaking, especially the climactic ending where our hero battles a bad guy on a runaway snowplow.

Nightfall is one of those beautiful, crisp black and white films that make you wonder why they bothered with colour. Jacques Tourneur is at his poetic best with this simple tale of a wrongfully accused man pursued by the police and the crooks — a classic noir plot if ever there was one. The pace and place are ideal. You're caught up and carried along by the action of the present predicament while the understanding of how the protagonist got there is slowly revealed in a series of flashbacks. The cast is perfect: Aldo Ray is solid as the likable hero in the wrong place at the wrong time, Anne Bancroft has just the right combination of worldly wisdom and hope as the girl caught up Ray's troubles, Brian Keith and Rudy Bond are a couple of hard guys who don't much like each other but have 300,000 reasons to form a slightly uneasy alliance and the wonderful character actor James Gregory gives a nuanced performance as the insurance agent on Ray's trail.While Nightfall won't change your life if is a solid piece of entertainment which Hollywood seem to toss off with so little effort back in 40's and 50's. It might have been just part of a standard double bill in 1957 but if it came out now it would be hailed as something special. Nightfall has more heart and soul than current fare like Drive. It doesn't have an untoward pretentious of being anything but what it is and that's plenty good enough for me.