Black Nightfall

There may be worse films, but I've never seen them. When I saw this movie in the theater the ticket seller actually warned me that a lot of people didn't like it and that I could have my money back if I left in the first 15 minutes.

Unfortunately I watched the whole thing, thinking to myself that it just *had* to get better. It didn't.

The only way that I'd watch this movie again is if my other choice was bamboo under the finger nails.

If you did not know the story line is about a planet surrounded by suns and knows no darkness but every couple thousand years an eclipse occurs and pure anarchy breaks out but this movie turns the story into a New Age Northern California Greek play set in the Arizona desert with people running around doing performance art.

David Birney is in this as a leader/astrologer or something that is never quite explained. Sarah Douglas is his former wife who left him for a religion or the religion's leader. Believe me you won't care. But it is nice to see her as something other than a villainess and this the only good I can say for the 'movie.' There are terrible sets, if you can call them that, terrible acting, editing, writing, and music that might have seemed advant- garde for 1979 but is just noise now

The most hilarious scene in the movie is the assassination attempt on Birney, it is something straight out of Ed Wood with the brute assassin foiled by the glare of some quartz or crystal that Birney picks up or it might be the performance art piece that the desert people put on or the performance art that the daughter does after killing someone or Douglas getting her eyes taken out by pet crows or...

If you are expecting a movie based on the Asimov story forget it but if you are a Northern Californian New Ager wondering what might have been then you might like this movie. Not Really.

And my summary line sums up this movie. This is easily one of the worst adaptations I have ever heard of.

What was so hard about trying to actually stick with Asimov's classic story? Did they think it would be boring? What they created is not simply boring, it's virtually incoherent as well.

In the world of science fiction, the long night has, metaphorically, always been with us. This film is a Black Hole that extinguishes the light of the original tale, sucks it in and imprisons it.

I actually paid money to see this in its mercifully brief theatrical release in 1988. The (tiny) audience had fun ad libbing dialogue that was much better than that provided the hapless actors. The film is bad in so many ways that it is difficult to pick out the worst element. Was it the art direction? The acting? The dialogue? The cinematography? The costumes? The plot? The editing? The music? In the end I think the worst thing is that it will probably insure that no decent film will ever be made of Asimov's "Nightfall".

The good doctor wrote that he had never seen the movie, and that he had nothing to do with it. This probably added a couple of years to Asimov's life.

I can only say that the other reviewers here at IMDb have been far too generous. This film is worse than you can imagine.

This film has great value as establishing a clear example of what a very bad piece of cinema looks like.

I had the misfortune of seeing this film in its brief theatrical release. I had talked my wife into seeing it by emphasizing the Asimov source material,and that the director, Paul Mayersberg, had done "Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence," and "The Man Who Fell to Earth." I cannot explain what happened to Mayersberg between the time he made these films and the time he made "Nightfall," other than to say that whatever it was, it wasn't good. That he was given the chance to make other films subsequent to this stinker argues strongly against the prevalent stereotype of Hollywood being heartless. Clearly, pity must have played a role in providing him with an additional opportunity.

My impressions: the locations appear to have been Topanga Canyon (although the IMDB lists Arcosante, Arizona), and the costumes (wigs and all) look like they came right out of the Ten Commandments' propman's trunk--probably the first time they'd seen the light of day since gracing Mr. Heston & company's loins.

If Isaac Asimov's surviving kin have any respect for him, they should seek to have his name removed from the credits; whatever the legal cost might be to achieve this, it would be worth it.