SYNOPSICS
Nightmare Alley (1947) is a English movie. Edmund Goulding has directed this movie. Tyrone Power,Joan Blondell,Coleen Gray,Helen Walker are the starring of this movie. It was released in 1947. Nightmare Alley (1947) is considered one of the best Drama,Film-Noir movie in India and around the world.
The ambitious Stanton "Stan" Carlisle works in a sideshow as carny and assistant of the mentalist Zeena Krumbein, who is married with the alcoholic Pete. The couple had developed a secret code to pretend to read minds and was successful in the show business before Pete starts drinking. Stan stays with them expecting to learn their code and leave the carnival to be a successful mentalist. Stan also flirts with the gorgeous Molly that lives in the carnival with the strong Bruno. Zeena and The Savage, an alcoholic man that eats live chickens that the audiences believe that is a savage, are the greatest attractions of the sideshow. When Stan gives booze to Pete and he dies, Stan finds that Pete had drunk methyl alcohol and not his booze, but he feels guilty for the death of him. Zeena teaches the code to him and Molly helps Stan to learn them. After an incident, Stan is forced to marry Molly and he decides to move to Chicago with her to become a sensation in a night club. One day, he ...
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Nightmare Alley (1947) Reviews
A film that will truly haunt your memory...
I first saw this film in the late 70's on a Toronto television program devoted to classic cinema. I was joined by friends who always got together on Saturday nights to watch the musicals, comedies, or classic performances offered that week. NIGHTMARE ALLEY came as a surprise. It was a raw, exposed nerve of a film. Instead of the Hollywood diction we had come to expect, this film expressed itself in 1940's carny colloquialisms. And nobody in the cast was soft - they were all hard knocks characters, almost down for the count, but still fighting. After about 15 minutes, nobody in front of that set moved until it was all over, except maybe to look sideways to see if anyone else could believe their eyes. This is a movie clawing your way to the top , and then paying the price for getting there. This is a movie about being careful what you wish for. It is a movie about odd fascinations with people who are actually messengers of your future in disguise. And ultimately, it is a movie about how futile is the love of a good woman if the man is destined for ruin. Needless to say, it was not standard Hollywood fare when made in the 40's, and it is still not standard fare today. It's message is somehow both shocking and familiar. Listen for the last words uttered, as though in offhand comment about our 'hero' by bystanders. Those words haunted me for over 20 years, until I was able to track down another showing of the film on TV (STILL not on VCR or DVD for heaven's sake!). And I remembered them correctly all that time - that's the impact they made. See this film. Surrender to it. It's that good.
obscure but memorable
It is totally amazing, nearly 60 years later, to realize the lengths that 20th Century Fox went to in order to keep Tyrone Power a handsome leading man rather than letting him show his stuff. It's no wonder Fox came to disgrace during the Cleopatra era. Pity it didn't happen earlier so Power had more opportunities to show his acting range. Nightmare Alley was a favorite of mine from the time I was a teenager -a film Power fought to make and one that the studio never publicized and released as a B film. Spiteful bunch, considering the money he had made for them! Power, Blondell, Gray, Helen Walker, and the marvelous Ian Keith turn in great performances in a gritty film somewhat ahead of its time for its unrelenting toughness, its hard view of alcoholism, a look inside the world of mentalists and carnival life, and its theme of the supernatural. It is reminiscent of "Ace in the Hole" and some of the later, cynical Wilder films. Power was one of those actors whose drop dead gorgeous appearance kept him from some excellent roles, thanks to his studio. He sometimes could appear rigid (though not in this film) but someone I knew saw him in a Broadway play and said it was like being alone in a room with him, he had such magnetism. We have so few examples of his really great work - the recording of John Brown's Body is one, this film is another - it's great that it's now out on DVD and available to the public.
A suicidal film
One of the most obscure films produced by classic Hollywood. It's Tyrone Power in the role of his life and the tragedy of an ambitious circus apprentice becoming a con artist and gradually turning into a pseudo-religious guru. Both director Edmund Goulding (Grand Hotel, Dark Victory) and writer W.L. Gresham committed suicide, and one can smell suicide in this gem of a film, that is the story of the embezzlement of a gift. That circus operates as a good metaphor of the B-system Hollywood of the 40's, where geeks worked side by sided with geniuses. The tarot cards foresee the worst: there's a geek in every man's soul, no matter how big one can be, a downfall no imposed `happy ending' can hide. In this nightmare populated by fun-fairs, alcoholism and eccentric millionaires obsessed with the deceased, the film version makes use of the essential from the source novel and provides the best invention: an unscrupulous psychiatrist who records her patients on tape and then blackmails them, a device that Brian de Palma himself would have be proud of.
Film Holds Up Well
Tryone Power gave one of his finest performances in "Nightmare Alley." His off-beat role highlighted a strange and intriguing tale, and was a role which he reportedly fought hard to get, upon his return to film work following military duty. Power proved he was capable of much more demanding parts than those normally given him. On screen most of the time, he displayed a flair for sound characterization and nuance, being endowed with an unusually fine speaking voice and diction. Lee Garmes' cinematography and Thomas Little's set decoration are notable here, and the entire cast works in fine ensemble fashion. Only some plot details may seem a little obvious and predictable. That's probably because "Nightmare Alley" details have been copied numerous times by other film makers and, as a result, we're much more savvy now than 1947 audiences. It was a particular treat to have an opportunity to see this film last week on a film society series in a beautiful 35mm print. The showing also reminded viewers how beautiful and effective black and white productions are, and how much they're missed.
Unforgettably creepy noir with Power, Blondell, Walker
As other commentators have noted, once you've seen this film it haunts you. The creepy carnival milieu has rarely been better done (well, Tod Browning's "Freaks" of course) but seems more wholesome than the upscale world of nightclub mentalists and corrupt psychiatrists to which Tyrone Power ascends. Joan Blondell is carnally blowzy but she's almost upstaged by the ill-starred actress Helen Walker (the duplicitous wife in Impact) as that double-crossing shrink. No one soon forgets Power's slippery climb to the top followed by his horrifying fall. This film is a true, dark classic.