I need a new tie tack right there.
Nightfall (1957) is a suspenseful movie let down by its ending. Set a little after World War II, Jim Vanning is a vet on a street corner, happy to help out a man who needs a light for his cigarette. He runs into a single woman in a bar and strikes up a conversation with her. He gains her address, as his profession is as a painter and she, a model, is always looking for work. Walking her out of the bar, he is accosted by two men, one of whom speaks with familiarity to the woman, who flees at Vanning’s imprecations.
They have guns, so he is persuaded to accompany them to an oil pump, the sort that needs no supervision. There they threaten him and demand he return their money, but he repeatedly, if in a discouraged manner, says he doesn’t know where it is. One of them appears to operate on a plane different from ours, ready to shoot Vanning just for giggles. In a moment of inattention, Vanning stuns them, takes their car, and flees.
Remember the guy who needed a light? We change over to him, and it turns out he’s been tracking Vanning as well. He’s discussing his efforts with his wife – what’s this all about?
Back to Vanning, he goes to the apartment of the woman in the bar and has a beginning of a good yell at her for setting him up, but she claims ignorance. Then his story starts to come out, told through flashbacks, of Vanning and his friend, Doc, on a camping trip, and helping a pair of men who had a car accident near their campsite.
And pulled guns on them.
The plot continues on from here, and it’s not bad at all. Information dribbles out, there are twists and turns, and credible characters are built. Unfortunately, the focus on the two bad guys is too scant to make believable the interpersonal friction which leads to their eventual self-destructive quarrel; too, the carelessness of the good guys was a trifle unbelievable. I found myself wishing they had entrapped the bad guys through cleverness, even though self-destruction is a valid observation of the criminal condition.
Despite the flaws of the ending, this is a solid effort, which I enjoyed.
