Nightmare Alley
 | Fox Film NoirDirected by Edmund Goulding Starring: Tyrone Power, Joan Blondell, Coleen Gray, Helen Walker, Taylor Holmes 20th Century Fox, 1947, DVD Customer Rating: 57 reviews Recommend |
|---|
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
Title: Nightmare Alley (Fox Film Noir)
Sales Rank: 14199 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 (Original Language), English (Subtitled), Spanish (Subtitled), English (Dubbed)
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Region Code: 1
Running Time: 110 minutes
Package Dimensions: 7.1 x 5.42 x 0.58 inches, 0.18 pounds
- 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
- Emotionally gripping drama
- A young man working with the carnival crew is looking for a way to become an entertainer. Surrounded by professionals skilled with magic acts, reading people's emotional needs and fine art of acting, he finds his way to become tutored in a fine con act. Soon afterwards he ditches his teacher in order to marry young carneval girl who will serve as his assistant during… More reviews
- More Horror than Noir, and Unforgettable
- I first saw this on RTE in Ireland in 1984. I looked for it thereafter, ran into it once at a rep house in the late 1980s, and searched in vain for years until it finally surfaced on DVD at my local video retailer. It made more of an impression on me than any movie, except maybe Raging Bull and The Deer Hunter. Yes, that's pretty august company, but really,… More reviews
- Colonel Parker's favourite
- This is one of the great film noirs and there's no need to say more. But a little known fact about the film is that Nightmare Alley was the favourite film of Elvis Presley's manager, 'Colonel' Parker. Now doesn't that tell you a lot about the Colonel? Parker was an ex-carnie before he latched on to Elvis. One wonders what Parker's repeated… More reviews
- Wednesdays and Saturdays
- I looked up Lilith's name in the library at: 1. Lilith. Rebecca M. Lesses. Encyclopedia of Religion. Ed. Lindsay Jones. Vol. 8. 2nd ed. Detroit: Macmillan Reference USA, 2005. p5458-5460.
Pesahim 112b, warning men not to go out alone on Wednesday and Sabbath evenings because of the presence of "Agrat, the daughter of Mahalat," has been taken by some commentators as a further reference to Lilith.… More reviews
