Nightmare Alley

Fox Film Noir

Starring: Tyrone Power, Joan Blondell, Coleen Gray, Helen Walker, Taylor Holmes

20th Century Fox, 1947, DVD

Product Description

In this engaging melodrama, Stanton Carlisle (Tyrone Power) is a lowlife working in a carnival. Knowing a good con when he sees one, he learns the tricks of a mind-reading act from Zeena (Joan Blondell), then tosses her aside. In time, he becomes ?The Great Stanton,? star attraction of swanky nightclubs and the darling of society. But with all his notoriety built on lies, it?s only a matter of time before exposure brings Stanton?s world crashing down around him.

The long-awaited emergence of Nightmare Alley into the light of DVD should achieve two things: make a legendary film noir available to a new generation, and restore the horrific charge to the lately watered-down term geek, a concept that once had the power to give people very bad dreams indeed.

To his lasting credit, Tyrone Power — 20th Century Fox's extraordinarily handsome but not terribly interesting star of the '30s and '40s — begged for the chance to play Stan Carlisle, the predatory charmer who snakes his way through this bracingly unwholesome story. A spieler for — and lover of — carnival mind reader Zeena (Joan Blondell), he displays uncanny skill at "reading" the susceptible rubes, including a tough sheriff who turns to jelly after Stan psychs him out. Once Stan's mastered the intricate code used in Zeena's act, he's set to dump her for the younger, sexier Molly (Coleen Gray) and go bigtime as nightclub psychic "Stanton the Great." After that, it's only a blasphemous bank shot to superstardom as a miracle worker with his own tabernacle and radio show.

Few '40s films ventured as deeply into cynicism as Nightmare Alley, or dealt so frankly with sexuality (with ripplings of polymorphous perversity yet) and power-tripping. The movie's rhythm is uncertain and Jules Furthman's screenplay telegraphs things, but the overall tone is remarkable, as are individual sequences: the freaky forced marriage of Stan and Molly in accordance with carny morality, and a creepy night scene in a park when Stanton the Great raises a ghost for a high-society client. Cinematographer Lee Garmes's chiaroscuro creates a relief map of the carnival world and what passes for life there. As for the geek... well, you'll find out what geek means. Stan does. — Richard T. Jameson

Product Details

Title: Nightmare Alley (Fox Film Noir)
Sales Rank: 7643 in DVD
Actor: Tyrone Power, Joan Blondell, Coleen Gray, Helen Walker, Taylor Holmes
Director: Edmund Goulding
Studio: 20th Century Fox, 2005-06-07, Theatrical Release: 1947-10-28
Format: Closed-captioned, Black & White, Dubbed, DVD, Full Screen, Subtitled, NTSC, Acpect Ratio 1.33:1
Languages: English (Subtitled), Spanish (Subtitled), English (Original Language), English (Dubbed)
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Region Code: 1
Running Time: 110 minutes
Item Dimensions: 0.25 pounds
Package Dimensions: 7.1 x 5.42 x 0.58 inches, 0.18 pounds

Customer Reviews

Booze throws him down the slippery slope: I love this movie as an adult. Tyrone Power always delivered strong performances and he was exactly what a Hollywood actor should be and was part of the reason that the old movies was a great movie environment to grow up in when the Seventies and Eighties in America were so stylistically appalling. The movie is dishy, way better than watching an episode of Intervention.… More reviews

Classic Film Noir!: An incredible production - dark and moody with a strong sense of raw reality. This was the first time I had seen a Tyrone Power movie - he was perfect for this role.
An excerpt from a Wikipedia entry about Tyrone Power states that, following the four years that Power had served in the military, he had not made a film… More reviews

Total Recall: Tyrone Power stars in this flick from 1947. They don't call it film noir for nothing. This is a dark brooding film. It's about Stanton Carlisle (Tyrone Power), a lowlife working in a carnival, who sees his chance to make it big. At first his desires seem innocent enough, but he inadvertently murders his competition, and before you know it his dream… More reviews

Very gripping, very different Film Noir: I love even the very one dimensional film noir. But this one has lots of several sided characters who are very unusual. I really can't add much to what other reviewers said. Great cinematography, great cast, and a very taut screenplay that keeps you very tense. Powers' character seems to almost believe his own B.S. Giving… More reviews

Sinister poetry in black and white: Nightmare Alley is a poetic dream in black and white. As for the story and the acting, the theatrical stylization is perfect for the theme, everybody is one kind of phony or another, scammer scams scammer. Tyrone Power is magnetic and manages to remain sympathetic as he grows sleazier at every turn. This film is such a visual treat, I watched it one time without the sound… More reviews