Nightmare Alley **** (1947, Tyrone Power, Joan Blondell, Coleen Gray, Helen Walker, Taylor Holmes, Mike Mazurki, Ian Keith) – Classic Movie Review 6128

Director Edmund Goulding’s haunting 1947 black and white film noir thriller Nightmare Alley is based on the novel by William Lindsay Gresham. It stars Tyrone Power as Stanton ‘Stan’ Carlisle, who becomes a carnival barker and a cod mind-reader or mentalist in order to con rich clients.

[Spoiler alert] But he is revealed as a fraud when his wife Molly (Coleen Gray) gets scared, subsequently taking to alcohol before finally becoming a circus freak.

Goulding’s movie is a Gothic melodrama that stands out for its extraordinarily independent vision, quite out of synch with regular Forties fashion and commercialism. An ideal Power, boldly cast against his image, demonstrates his considerable skills as an actor when not confined to being typecast as a romantic lead.

Director Goulding holds together the performances, Jules Furthman’s sharp screenplay and the startlingly inventive black and white camerawork by Lee Garmes, moulding them into one of the most darkly cynical morality tales of the Forties. The movie’s considerable interest and fascination lie in how strange, even weird it is.

As feared by the 20th Century Fox studio, the film was a box-office flop. Even after interfering with ending, the studio boss and executive producer Darryl F Zanuck found the film distasteful and later withdrew it, turning it into a rarity, until its 2005 DVD release as a Fox noir. Even so, it is still a rarity, hard to find, expensive to buy.

It also stars Joan Blondell as Zeena Krumbein and Helen Walker as Lilith Ritter. Also in the cast are Taylor Holmes as Ezra Grindle, Mike Mazurki as Bruno, Ian Keith as Pete Krumbein, Roy Roberts, James Burke, Julia Dean and James Flavin.

This 111-minute 20th Century Fox release is produced by George Jessel, and scored by Lionel Newman and Cyril J Mockridge.

It is to Power’s great credit that he asked Zanuck to buy the rights to the novel so he could star in it to expand his range. Zanuck paid $50,000 in September 1946 for the rights and Gresham was hired as consultant to screenwriter Jules Furthman. But Zanuck directed Furthman to soften the ending of the novel.

Fox built a full working carnival on ten acres of their back lot and hired more than 100 sideshow attractions and carnival personnel. It was also shot at the San Diego County Fair in Del Mar, California.

Chillingly, Gresham committed suicide by sleeping pills on 14 September 1962 in the same room in the Hotel Carter, Manhattan, where he wrote the first draft of Nightmare Alley.

Nightmare Alley is directed by Edmund Goulding, runs 111 minutes, is made and released by 20th Century Fox, is written by Jules Furthman, based on the novel by William Lindsay Gresham, is shot in black and white by Lee Garmes, is produced by Darryl F Zanuck (executive producer) and George Jessel (producer), is scored by Cyril J Mockridge and Lionel Newman (conductor), and designed by Lyle R Wheeler and J Russell Spencer.

Goulding is also the director of Dark Victory, The Razor’s Edge and Grand Hotel.

However, happily, Nightmare Alley is about to be famous again. A grand cast of Bradley Cooper, Cate Blanchett, Toni Collette, Willem Dafoe, Richard Jenkins, Rooney Mara, Ron Perlman, Mary Steenburgen, and David Strathairn star in a remake, Fox Searchlight’s $60 million Nightmare Alley, Guillermo del Toro’s follow-up to his Oscar-winning The Shape of Water. Del Toro directs and co-writes the script with Kim Morgan.

Filming commenced in January 2020 in Toronto, Ontario. In March 2020, Del Toro shut down production after rising concerns over the COVID-19 pandemic. It resumed in September 2020 in Toronto and production wrapped in December 2020. The film was premiered at the Alice Tully Hall in New York on 1 December 2021 and released on 17 December 2021.

Sadly, it looks like history is repeating itself and the film is a box-office flop, grossing only $14.6 million.

© Derek Winnert 2017 Classic Movie Review 6128

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