Nightmare Alley (Fox Film Noir)

Amazon.com

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

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.

Customer Reviews:

The Spook biz..........2007-08-14

"Throughout the ages, man has sought to look behind the veil that hides him from tomorrow. And through the ages, certain men have looked into the polished crystal... and seen. Is it some quality of the crystal itself, or does the gazer merely use it to turn his gaze inward? Who knows? But visions come. Slowly shifting their forms... visions come." - Pete Krumbein.

Stanton Calisle is a young carnie fascinated by the denizens of the carnival midway, especially the mental acts, and the faux psychic Zeena in particular, who puts on quite a remarkable show. Through a series of clever manipulations, he plays the rubes well with the best of them, with a goal to learn a secret code shared between Zeena and her drunkard husband Pete. He exploits this weakness, handing him his very own bottle of what he thought was 'moonshine', but turns out to be the wood alcohol Zeena uses in her act. After his 'accidental' death, he takes his place and learns the code well, travelling from town to town fleecing the local yokel boobs.

Besides her psychic show, Zeena really does believe in Tarot* cards, and had previously prognosticated the demise in 'the hanged man' beside the 'Death' card {reversed}, signifying a negative change.

Stan's natural talents really shine forth when he so expertly cold reads the local marshall... the kid has it! He was initially fixing on arresting Zeena and the lovely Molly, A.K.A. 'Electra', who is a living electricity conductor, for indecent exposure. Stan explains that she needs to wear that skimpy outfit, otherwise any regular clothing would catch fire. He then begins to regail him with all manner of personal information and seeming 'psychic' impressions, all the while implanting covert suggestions, both amazing the Marshall and buying time for the crew to clear out the crowd and pack it up.

During the ensuing celebration, Zeena and Bruno become jealously aware of Molly's infatuation with Stan, roughing him up to inspire another plan. Turns out that Molly helped Zeena in teaching Stan 'the code'; so they decide to leave the carnival and go into the big time together, at first playing swanky night clubs, and eventually theatres to an audience of social elites. Ingeniously pegging each question flawlessly, he becomes a sensation as 'Stanton The Great', a darling of the rich.

Here is where he meets psychiatrist, the beautiful Lilith Ritter during a cold reading at a performance, in which he divulges that she was attempting to trip him up with a trick question. This impresses her enough that they should meet at her office, wherein he discovers some of her own methods of hypnosis; recordings of her wealthy patients' innermost thoughts during sessions could prove very valuable, veritably turning that berg on its ear! They eventually strike a deal, and go into the spook biz together.

Now with all this additional information, he ups the anti from 'psychic impression' to 'perceiving the dead', he gains the interest of a wealthy Lady who receives such comfort from his reassuring words about her dead daughter, that she vows monetary support, even mentioning bestowing him his own tabernacle!

Zeena and Bruno decide to visit their former friend, the now wildly successful mentalist, wherein during the visitation, Zeena reads the Tarot cards which again predict ruin by 'the hanged man', which actually represents stasis / 'life in suspension'. Annoyed by the reading, he kicks them out, although the card seems to assert itself...

Soon thereafter, Carlisle is faced with his greatest challenge - at the behest of a Mr. Grindle, if he can produce a vision of his long-lost love 'Dorie', his dead fiance', he will be paid a small fortune. Despite her protests, being her approximate age and appearence, he gets Molly in on the scam; but when Grindle pours his heart out in the garden, she breaks her etheric composure, effectively ruining his career marking him as a sham, so he goes on the lam without Molly to keep her out of danger. A classic bittersweet train station scene ensues.

On his way out of town in a cab, he realizes he has been had by rotten Ritter, who had replaced $100's with singles, and tries to convince him that he is crazy when confronted. Everybody's on the take. He flees amidst police sirens.

With the loss of his career and wife, he plunges into obscurity and alcohol abuse, keeping the company of dregs, until realizing he must return to the midway, from the bottom up once again. Attempting to gain the position of 'magician' as 'Shiek Abracadabra', which are a dime a dozen nowadays, he is promised a bottle a day and a place to sleep it off, if he can fill the role of... geek. The geek is some sort of wild, filthy hursuit humanoid deformaty said to eat live chickens. At least, that description is for the rubes, and spells good business. Suffering the fate of previous geeks, he is reduced to an undignified level until recognized by none other than his dear Molly, who cares for him thereafter.

CONCLUSION

Carlisle went full circle, eventually finding himself in the same position, quoting the very same words uttered to him by lush Pete Krumbein, and as a matter of fact, here and there, one can actually hear the faint frantic mumblings of the geek while on his way to descent. Had those gypsy tarot cards actually predicted his downfall, or was it all just a self-fulfilling prophesy? Perhaps a bit of both...

Nightmare Alley strips away the pretentions of those populating the 'spiritualist' spook biz, from so-called 'psychics' to mediums, even including the jesus racket, revealing the true nature of selfish intent, profiting from the neuroses and emotional suffering of the gullible, sometimes believing their own spiel. Whether in the carnival or in an office, "it takes one to catch one..." While the plot outlines these predatory factors, it also manages to sustain an underlying sensation of a dark energy pervaiding. Through these deceptions, it seems there are certain machinations operating in the characters' lives which cannot be denied, but which are actually malleable.

Throughout the film, one will notice proliferous uses of trapezoidal angles, pentagrams, and uses of various light and shadow techniques somewhat reminiscient of shauerfilm productions, creating an eerie atmosphere both entertaining and stimulating.

_________
* Word to the interested: "Tarot" derives from an Egyptian, not a french origin, it is pronounced 'tarot' like 'merit', not with the typical accent 'terroh'. The thing about such oracles, is that they are not inevitable predictions, but rather can serve as warnings so that the subject may pay attention to such matters and effectively modify situations by avoiding such obstacles.

AND NOW, IT'S FEEDIN' TIME..............2007-06-30

Somehow I saw this film when I was 8 years old and it scared the hell out of me. I have never forgotten it and was very glad when the DVD was released.
Now that I am 51 years old, and know the subtle pleasures of the noir genre, I can only say that this movie has improved like a fine wine: not the rotgut swill that The Stanton the Great eventually accepts as his pay. Tyrone Power is at his best, Joan Blondell is a perfectly bitchy carny queen, and all the rest are equally terrific.
Without adding any spoilers, I'll just say that this movie explores a side of human depravity rarely seen in the majority of films---today or during the forties.
It is ironic to me that I accepted a position as Executive Chef for Ringling Bros. and Barnum and Bailey Circus from 1998 to 2001. No, we did not have any carnival geeks, but we had many, many crackhead zombies in the lower unskilled crews. Who else is going to stand behind an elephant with a shovel?
And believe it or not, you can still catch a carnival geek performance in Eastern Europe, Africa, and Southeast Asia!

One of the Film Noir Greats.......2007-02-01

"Nightmare Alley" was released by Twentieth-Century Fox in 1947, the same year that another film noir classic, "Out of the Past", was released by RKO. Neither film touched off the kind of immediate box office sparks that each movie deserved, but in the manner of classics, it often takes time to appreciate these rare gems but as time elapses the positive responses multiply.

An old personal friend, Mike Mazurki, experienced some of his proudest moments of his career in "Nightmare Alley" along with another noir favorite of his from the same period in which he appeared, "Murder, My Sweet." Mike, who was juggling his acting career alongside headlining wrestling cards in the Los Angeles area in arenas such as Olympic Auditorium, Hollywood Legion Stadium, and Ocean Park Arena, had mixed feelings when he retrospectively looked back on working alongside Tyrone Power in "Nightmare Alley."

Mazurki was delighted to be in the film, and happy that this time he was not playing a ruthless criminal, even though he acknowledged that he had no complaints playing Moose Malloy in "Murder, My Sweet" opposite Dick Powell and Claire Trevor. While he remained forever proud of "Nightmare Alley" as a great film, one memory about the film saddened him.

"Ty Power was so great in `Nightmare Alley,'" Mike exclaimed, "but he never even got an Oscar nomination after turning in such a great performance. Edmund Goulding did a great job in directing Ty and all of us."

Mazurki knew how the business operated. Twentieth was placing its promotional dollars and emphasis elsewhere and as a result Power did not receive the kind of build-up deemed essential to gain recognition in the competitive Academy Awards sweepstakes.

One year earlier, in 1946, Power appeared in "The Razor's Edge," an adaptation of a Somerset Maugham novel, which Edmund Goulding also directed. The British director, who began as an actor in silent films, provided the kind of attentive care to Power and other performers in "Nightmare Alley" to produce a milestone film. Twentieth-Century Fox boss Darryl Zanuck put more money into promoting "The Razor's Edge" and Anne Baxter walked off with a Best Supporting Actress statuette on Oscar night.

Power, as one of the screen's matinee idols, fought to overcome an unfair "pretty boy" tag when he was far more than a handsome face and proved when given the chance to be an accomplished actor. "Nightmare Alley" provided him with such a chance as he performs with virtuoso skill in a challenging role of a con artist and glib pitch man along the order of Burt Lancaster in "Elmer Gantry," for which the muscular Hollywood veteran received a Best Actor Oscar.

While Mazurki attempts to warn young and vulnerable Coleen Gray about linking her heart to Power, a man he sees as flaw-ridden, the opportunistic con man finds more common ground with the more experienced Helen Walker. When Power cuts loose with his routine audiences get the chance to see a screen craftsman on display.

As a superb dramatic vehicle for Tyrone Power, "Nightmare Alley" stands alongside Rouben Mamoulian's bullfighting gem "Blood and Sand," when the actor teamed up with Twentieth beauties Rita Hayworth and Linda Darnell, and "Alexander's Ragtime Band," where he played opposite the studio's stunning blonde box office champ, Alice Faye.

Zanuck knew the value of Tyrone Power. He apparently erred, however, in not marshalling more publicity effort into "Nightmare Alley." This is truly convincing film noir at its peak and this DVD comes along at a time when the genre is riding high.

A Geek through A Glass Darkly.......2006-10-18

I don't know how I got through life without seeing this one before. Ty Power is a fledgling carny barker. He sets up the mind-reading performance of Zeena (Joan Blondell), who is married to a drunk, named Pete, who used to do a mentalist act in Vaudeville with her. A sophisticated code was used which allowed the mentalist to 'read' people's minds.

The carny atmosphere adds to the seediness of it all. Ty is a heel and a cad. He thinks of no one but himself. He wants that code so he and Blondell can be headliners again.

Mike Mazurski is the Carny strongman Bruno, who is jealous of his girl Molly's attentions to Stan (Tyrone Power). There are all kinds of female diversions around for Stan, but he is intent upon getting the code that kept Blondell and her hubby aloft in vaudeville.

Thematically at the center of the story is a horrendous, half animal human being called the Geek. He's the headliner of the sideshow. He's not actually shown at this juncture. Another practiced carny barker with a straw boater and a bamboo cane touts his qualities to an audience while tossing the Geek two live chickens to gobble.

Stan accidentally kills Pete by grabbing a bottle of wood alcohol from the prop trunk, which he thought was the bottle of moonshine he had bought from the Carny bootlegger. He is mortified to learn he is responsible for Pete's death, but he takes the trouble to retrieve the moonshine bottle still in the prop trunk and hide it.

Stan is soon caught by Zeena and Bruno romancing Molly, Bruno's girl, and somehow the two of them leave the circus and take a mentalist show onto the nightclub circuit.

Zeena has read Stan's fate in her Tarot cards. It is the same as her husband Pete's fate. Stan keeps struggling with this.

Its a thoroughly interesting movie, better than most produced today. The hallmark of a good movie is that it keeps you guessing about what's going to happen next.

Fox has polished this one up and served it as an example of Film Noir. Noir is so hot on DVD that every black and white drama before 1959 is being considered for the noir treatment. But this one doesn't qualify even if it is a good film.

Film Noir drifted out of pulp magazines of the thirties like Black Mask, where Hammett, Chandler and James M. Cain had flourished, into movies, beginning around 1940. Some argue the Maltese Falcon of John Huston was Noir, but the French defined Noir (black). Even though Hollywood filmmakers had created Noir, it was not recognized until Jean Luc Godard and others started writing about it in the French magazine Cahiers Du Cinema in the late fifties.

The shadows, action and music accompanying the black and white cinematography of that era were what made Noir Noir. The Maltese Falcon was too static and stagy to qualify as noir. The first good example of Noir by my definition is Out of the Past with Robert Mitchum, Jane Greer, Kirk Douglas and the most outlandish series of landscapes ever stuffed into a single movie. A moment in Out of the Past captures what Noir is. Mitchum's face is seen in half shadow lighting a cigarette as he turns slightly to confront something happening behind him in the half-lit darkness. All Noir has the usual poisonous darkness of the central character, but that's not really enough. Real Noir has the shadowed faces and the Noir lighting at a moment when active violence is in progress or in the offing. Its a concoction of effects that stirs the viewer to just the right level of appreciation. Its something some of the better filmmakers tried to add to what the Hard-Boiled pulp writers had created between pages.

Tyrone Power at his darkest.......2006-10-07

Produced by none other than George Jessel, "Nightmare Alley" is a bizarre trip into madness and degradation.
Ty Power gives one of his strongest performances and is backed with a strong supporting cast.
The plot has been outlined in detail by other reviewers, so I won't go into that here.
This DVD was made from a good print and the transfer is excellent. It also contains some bonus extras.
All-in-all, a "must see" for film noir fans.

Average customer rating:

Film Noir Boxed Set
remember...no 16 Boomerang is still missing
better price (than list) to start your collection, but not the best deal on noir
Don't Forget This One Too.........
An indispensable series for aficionados of film noir

Film Noir Boxed Set
Starring: Gene Tierney , Dana Andrews , Clifton Webb , Vincent Price , and James Stewart
Director: Henry Hathaway , and Otto Preminger
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

General | Drama | Genres | DVD | Video

Crime & Criminals | Drama | Genres | DVD | Video

Classics | Drama | Genres | DVD | Video

Film Noir | Mystery & Suspense | Genres | DVD | Video

Classics | Mystery & Suspense | Genres | DVD | Video

Drama | Boxed Sets | Stores | DVD | Video

Mystery & Suspense | Boxed Sets | Stores | DVD | Video

( F ) | Titles | Features | DVD | Video
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ASIN: B000MDH6RK
Release Date: 2007-03-01

Amazon.com

This 17 film collection includes some of the best in film noir from 1944 - 1955, with 12 Oscar nominations between them. These are the films that defined the genre and the style of film-making. Mystery, Suspense, Murder, this collection has it all! Films Included: Call Northside 777, Laura, Panic in the Streets, House of Bamboo, Nightmare Alley, Street with no Name, House on 92nd Street, Somewhere in the Night, Whirlpool, Dark Corner, Kiss of Death, Where the Sidewalk Ends, Fallen Angel, The House on Telegraph Road, No Way Out, I Wake Up Screaming and House of Strangers

Customer Reviews:

Film Noir Boxed Set.......2007-03-28

I have watched about half of these movies & so far all of them have been very good, in fact, much better than I expected. I find Dana Andrews to be a very compelling leading man & the actresses in all of these are superb as well. I hope Fox will resolve their issues with "Boomerang" which is #16 in the set, (which is not included with your purchase) so that I can add this one to the collection. My only complaint is that this collection is not really a boxed set. It is simply 17 great film noir DVD's shrink-wrapped together. However, this is a great value & lots of these titles are being released for the first time in this set. Highly recommended for those who like the genre.

remember...no 16 Boomerang is still missing.......2007-03-18

This set misses out no.16 "Boomerang". It got recalled at the eleventh hour by Fox because of a legal tangle.
You can find it on sale for $45.00 on amazon marketplace, because it was actually printed and ready to go.
Clearly a few boxes have found their way out the back door!!!!
But despite that wee dissapointment you'll love the rest.
Hopefully Fox will sort out the mess soon..... and then you can plug the gap without having to shell out silly money.

better price (than list) to start your collection, but not the best deal on noir.......2007-03-12

I haven't yet purchased these titles & was just about to, until I checked up on what's included with the current bundle (March 1 2007) that Amazon is offering. As previously mentioned, this is not a box set (misleading description from Amazon), but rather a bundle of the first 17 titles in Fox's noir series. I purchased the Warner Bros.' boxes 1-3 (and reviewed them there) which I thought were an excellent value for the money (when on sale, roughly 6 - 7$ per disc). I've held off on these since the price is higher. This bundle discounts the titles to about $8 per disc, which is better than the usual price for each, but a local retailer often sells these titles for 7.50 - 10.00 (with a buy 3 get 1 free sale). Still I would have jumped on this price had this been a bonafide box set with the slimmer DVD cases, but these regular dvd's will take up quite a bit of real estate in my storage. Moreover, the more recent titles aren't included (missing titles: Boomerang, 14 Hours, Shock, Vicki, all released last year). If Fox would release all the titles to date (plus the next releases: Hangover Square & The Lodger) in slim cases & a box at a comparable price I'll jump, otherwise I'm holding out for a better deal.

Don't Forget This One Too................2006-03-05

For some reason the Fox Noir release Dark Corner (Mark Stevens, Lucille Ball, Clifton Webb, William Bendix) doesn't get much coverage under the typical outlets for obtaining these Fox Noir titles, Amazon included. I didn't even know the title was even out there, but it is, and it is quite a Noir gem. I say this without hesitation because I was never a Lucy fan at all. But in this one, she's actually pretty cool. Too bad she went goofy in later life (I guess it paid the bills).
If you like the Fox Noir series and Noir in general, don't forget this one too. I got mine from Tower Records (seems hard to find for some reason). The famous "peering through the venetian blinds" scene that you see stills of all the time, that's Mark Stevens. A somewhat overlooked actor in Noir circuit, but he can hold up to any of the other more noted ones in my opinion. Check it out.

An indispensable series for aficionados of film noir.......2006-01-10

The Fox film noir collection is an "Amazon.com exclusive" consisting of 9 DVDS in their individual cases (alas including individual shrink wrap, which one tediously has to remove) presented in one blister pack. The nine titles are:
*** BATCH 1 (DVDs released 3/05): Call Northside 777 (1948); Laura (1944); Panic in the streets (1950)
*** BATCH 2 (DVDs released 6/05): House of bamboo (1955); Nightmare alley (1947); Street with no name (1948)
*** BATCH 3 (DVDs released 9/05): House on 92nd Street (1945); Somewhere in the night (1946); Whirlpool (1949)

The film restorations are superbly done. The DVD cases are in uniform format, being part of the "Fox film noir" series. Each title has a film commentary (Laura has two) plus other extras, minimally a trailer. In addition, each title has a 4-page booklet with these sections: "the lineup," "the look," "the scoop," "the story," and "scene selection."

The DVDs list for $14.95 each and currently Amazon sells them for around $10 each. Amazon sells the 9-DVD collection for $74.99, which works out to $8.33 for each DVD. Certainly, not all titles are of the caliber of Laura (1944), but this collection is a must-have for the firm-noir aficionado.

Incidentally, BATCH 4, was released 12/05 and consists of: The dark corner (1946); Kiss of death (1947); Where the sidewalk ends (1950). BATCH 5 will be released in 3/06: Fallen angel (1945); House on Telegraph Hill (1951); No way out (1950)

Alain Silver & Elizabeth Ward's "Film noir: An encyclopedic reference to the American style" (1992, 3rd ed.) lists 32 noir titles by Fox. Hence we can probably expect from Fox another 20 or so titles in the "Fox film noir" series. If these 32ish titles all materialize in this excellent series, it will be a big chunk both out of one's purse and DVD shelf space.

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