cult film freak: JACQUES TOURNEUR'S 'NIGHTFALL' WITH ALDO RAY & BRIAN KEITH

Title: NIGHTFALL Director: Jacques Tourneur Year: 1956 Rating: ***

Perhaps one of the strangest film noirs anchored by a frame story, taking up an equal amount of time as flashbacks that Aldo Ray only half remembers: going fishing with a doctor, who's murdered by off-kilter assassin Rudy Bond under cold-blooded yet semi-charming alpha-male partner Brian Keith...

This backstory... about Ray being held captive-at-gunpoint by the two thugs who had just robbed a bank and are looking for a place to hide the money... occurs in the rural woods with beautiful mountainesque backdrops contrasting to the sparse B&W... being recalled near a dark/grainy oil-rig and, returning to the present time, in a smoky tavern under big city neon-lights, Ray's being seduced by model Anne Bancroft, just to be set up...

Jacques Tourneur's NIGHTFALL

Which is how he's kidnapped by the same two thugs, again, in order to find the money and, if this sounds confusing, NIGHTFALL... directed by noir auteur Jacques Tourneur... is even busier than his standout OUT OF THE PAST and somehow weirder than CAT PEOPLE: leaving the romantic angle by broodingly-muscular Ray and lithe/sultry Bancroft even more awkward than how the criminal duo's both lackback and tediously/uncomfortably sadistic...

Making this otherwise capably edgy crime-melodrama patchwork sporadically work despite seeming like two different movies searching desperately to connect with the viewer, and the characters, including token tailing cop James Gregory and faithful wife Jocelyn Brando — everyone seeming in an audition for their very own television crime series.