Directed by:
Edmund GouldingScreenplay:
Jules FurthmanCinematography:
Lee GarmesComposer:
Cyril J. MockridgeCast:
Tyrone Power, Joan Blondell, Coleen Gray, Helen Walker, Mike Mazurki, Ian Keith, Gene Roth, Eddy Waller, George Chandler, James Flavin, Roy Roberts (more)Plots(1)
One of the darkest and most startling films ever to come out of golden-era Hollywood, based on a novel that many thought unfilmable at a time when the Production Code held sway, Nightmare Alley is set in the gritty yet surreal world of a travelling carnival, whose eccentric inhabitants serve up bizarre illusions to a grateful and gullible public. Tyrone Power’s ruthless schemer, Stanton Carlisle, was his favorite of all his roles, and no wonder: it stretched him like nothing before or since as Carlisle rises from raffish carnival barker to national mind-reading sensation in partnership with his beautiful wife Molly (Coleen Gray), before an equally precipitous fall at the hands of a duplicitous psychologist (Helen Walker) and his own all too human frailties. Director Edmund Goulding conjures a spellbinding atmosphere out of some of the weirdest material ever to be tackled by a major studio. (Signal One Entertainment)
(more)Reviews (2)
The Chicago half is a fantastic film-noir. It is, however, prefaced by a long merry-go-round prologue that doesn't make much sense; or rather, it does, but it’s nothing that couldn’t fit in fifteen minutes. On the other hand, it is framed by a tongue-in-cheek epilogue of "who screws who". It feels like two completely separate hour-long films in one. One solid with lessons from the mundane, the other a classic and damn good noir, but it just doesn't really hold together as a cohesive whole. What brings it together, after all, is Power's mesmerizing performance.
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Comparing the two adaptations of Nightmare Alley is fascinating. While the modern version is enveloped in the style of opulent art deco and is gritty and mystical even for today's standards, the 1940s version is seemingly identical, yet laced with the Hays Codex without any significant stylistic elements. We never see the dreaded monster, major twists are dispensed with even without the murders, the relationships between the characters are different, and we get to see that juggling act more often. Starring Fox star Tyrone Power, who exceptionally played the villain, as Zeena the already slightly fading girl Joan Blondell, while the rest of the ensemble is routine.
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