This 1947 film noir is staged around the traveling carnival, using the temptations of wealth and trickery to bring the heavy hands of fate on the main character, Stan, played by Tyrone Power.
Stan starts off as a young apprentice to a mind reader named Zeena, who is rumoured, used to be in the ‘big-time’, before everything came crashing down. Towed along behind her is her alcoholic husband, Pete, who appears so downtrodden and wretched, that he has to beg for money from his wife for a drink.
Zeena is a hustler, naturally, as all the carnival people are looking to separate people from their money. Nevertheless, she carries a deck of Tarot cards which she uses to dvine the future it’s an odd juxtaposition, and one that Stan laughs at even though we know that the cards will come true.
“Nightmare Alley” is certainly a movie lacking in a strong narrative structure, but that certainly does not take away the movie’s charm. Directed by Edmund Golding, the film uses the location of the carnival without joy or bright lights, preferring, instead, to hide in the shadows. Goulding uses his lighting meticulously, obscuring faces, then illuminating them; his masterful control of the frame is mesmerizing, to say the least.
Stan proves himself to be an excellent ‘mentalist’, a mind reader that can scam the best of them. When he gets ostracized from the carnival, he takes his wife and starts a nightclub show in Boston, wallowing in the hot spotlights of fame and fortune.
He’s ambitious, though, and it’s never enough. A chance encounter with a psychologist shows him the way up; to him, what is a psychologist, or even a gifted minister, but a mentalist in fine robes? From culturecourt.com:
“Nightmare Alley” opens with Stan looking at the carnival’s main attraction, the “Geek”, a crazed man that seems like a protohuman, barbaric, unshaved and unkempt, willing to do anything, as long as he gets his bottle of drink and a place to sleep. The crowd goes wild as the announcer throws a couple of live chickens in the Geek pit, and says ‘Now, it’s feeding time!’
Naturally, Stan cannot understand why a person would degrade themselves like that. After all, he’s young, handsome and gifted, able to sweet talk just about anyone into anything. He’ll reach for the ‘Big Time’, just like Zeena did, and the question is: will he fly, or will he fall?
The movie is flawed in so many ways, and the acting, normal for the time, seems laughable now, especially any of the corny romantic dialogue. “Nightmare Alley” is hardly a much-loved classic, but it is an excellent look at film noir: the setup, the dames, the temptation, and the punishing price for failure.
I say: I was lucky enough to see it at the incredible Art After Hours event at the Art Gallery of NSW. It’s definitely a great unknown classic, worth seeing.
See it for: Stan falls for a young carnival girl, played by Coleen Gray, who is quite pretty, with a bright, clean face. Tyrone Powers reminds me of George Clooney and Coleen Gray reminds me of Jodie Foster!
To watch more movies like Nightmare Alley 1947 visit hurawatch
Also watch: