Misfortunes of Imaginary Beings: 04/12/20

A blog formerly known as Bookishness / By Charles Matthews

"Dazzled by so many and such marvelous inventions, the people of Macondo ... became indignant over the living images that the prosperous merchant Bruno Crespi projected in the theater with the lion-head ticket windows, for a character who had died and was buried in one film and for whose misfortune tears had been shed would reappear alive and transformed into an Arab in the next one. The audience, who had paid two cents apiece to share the difficulties of the actors, would not tolerate that outlandish fraud and they broke up the seats. The mayor, at the urging of Bruno Crespi, explained in a proclamation that the cinema was a machine of illusions that did not merit the emotional outbursts of the audience. With that discouraging explanation many ... decided not to return to the movies, considering that they already had too many troubles of their own to weep over the acted-out misfortunes of imaginary beings."
--Gabriel García Márquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude

Sunday, April 12, 2020

Nightfall (Jacques Tourneur, 1956)

Anne Bancroft and Aldo Ray in Nightfall

Cast: Aldo Ray, Anne Bancroft, Brian Keith, James Gregory, Rudy Bond, Frank Albertson, Jocelyn Brando. Screenplay: Stirling Silliphant, based on a novel by David Goodis. Cinematography: Burnett Guffey. Art direction: Ross Bellah. Film editing: William A. Lyon. Music: George Duning.

Nightfall is a well-made thriller strengthened by ingenious plotting: It never lets the viewer know too much too soon, keeping the motives and even the identities of its characters hidden until the right time to reveal them. Beefy Aldo Ray plays the protagonist, whom we know as Jim Vanning until his past is disclosed. Vanning, it turns out, is on the run, accused of murder but also trying to dodge the real killers, a pair of bank robbers played by Brian Keith and Rudy Bond, who think that Vanning has absconded with the loot from their heist. But Vanning doesn't know that he's also being tailed by an insurance investigator, played by James Gregory. In a bar, Vanning meets Marie Gardner, played by Anne Bancroft a few years before The Miracle Worker (Arthur Penn, 1962) won her an Oscar and made her a star. She's a model and he's a freelance magazine illustrator, so they hit it off, not so fortunately for her because at that point the robbers show up, ready to beat the location of the money out of Vanning. Marie gets caught up in the plot as Vanning eludes the thugs and hides out with her. Eventually, they go on the run, joined by the insurance investigator, who is perfectly happy to help Vanning recover the money and prove his innocence. It all moves along swiftly, thanks to Jacques Tourneur's direction, and handsomely, thanks to the cinematography of Burnett Guffey, who is equally adept at filming the noir shadows of the city and the bright snowy landscape of Wyoming where the chase winds up.