Friday, November 6, 2020 at 11:42:00 P.M. EST
TCM’s Film Noir of the Week Saturday Night-Sunday Morning at 1 a.m. (an hour later than usual) and 10 a.m. ET is Jacques Tourneur’s Nightfall (1956), with Aldo Ray, Brian Keith, Anne Bancroft, James Gregory and Rudy Bond.
Film Noir Guide: “Artist Ray is being pursued by cops, who think he’s a murderer, and by two bank robbers (Keith and Bond), who believe he has their loot.
“Gregory (Inspector Frank Luger in TV’s Barney Miller) is the insurance investigator trailing Ray, hoping to find the money.
“Bancroft, a model, falls for the artist and tries to help clear him.
“This is a fast-moving and enjoyable film, but Ray is unexciting in the lead role. Bond, however, is excellent as the psychopathic bank robber who’s just itching to nock off Ray.”
David in TN: This week’s entry is a good one not shown on TCM often. Unusual for Aldo Ray to be cast as a commercial artist. Ray was best known in the 50’s for playing rough soldiers or marines. Nightfall is based on a David Goodis novel with the same title.
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TCM's Film Noir of the Week Saturday Night-Sunday Morning at Midnight and 10 am ET is Fear (1946). This is a 68-minute film by Monogram, known as Poverty Row. The cast of not especially well known players includes Warren William, Peter Cookson, Anne Gwynne, Nestor Paiva, Francis Pierlot, directed by "an American-born German director," Alfred Zeisler.
Film Noir Guide: "Medical student Cookson has just lost his scholarship and is about to be evicted from his seedy apartment. The only way he can obtain his rent money, he thinks, is to rob and kill a cantankerous and miserly professor (Pierlot) who secretly acts as a pawnbroker for the students. Cookson goes to Pierlot's apartment pretending he has something to pawn and strikes the man with a fireplace poker. Unfortunately for him, two students show up at the apartment door and he leaves in a panic, forgetting to take the money. Ironically, he receives a $1000 check the next day--payment for a magazine article he submitted about the intellectually superior man being above the law. The article attracts the attention of detectives William and Paiva, who suspect that Cookson might be the killer. Gwynne is the pretty waitress with whom Cookson falls in love. This is a skillfully acted little noir that sustains interest despite its low production values. The ending however is disappointing."
Fear (1946) is supposedly a reworking of Fyodor Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment. A teacher had me read Crime and Punishment when I was a 15-year old high school sophomore. She thought I was her only student who could read it. I considered it pretty dense.
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