Der Scharlatan (1947) Online

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Nightmare Alley is a remarkable film- it hardly blinks in showing a cynical, scheming "preacher" doing his thing.Given the norms of Hollywood at the time, or almost at any time,it does give you a lot to consider.Tyrone Power is brilliant, and the movie is actually quite close to the powerful (hard to find!) novel.In the best tradition of a movie that examines the dark side of society in an effectively muckraking way, it is a rare gem. I found the movie all the more effective for the fact that while Tyrone Power is in a quite uncharacteristic role. It is obvious he is strongly committed to the film and delivers a chilling, scary, thought provoking performance. The glimpses of the brutality of contemporary circus/side show life are in themselves interesting and disquieting. It is a rare film and even rarer book, but really worth the time.

This anomalous drama, light years ahead of its time in 1947, is set in a rustic time and place of American history. This is the Carnivals that once traveled from town to town where for a couple of hours the tedious routine of hard working people of the small towns and farms across the land could be shattered as a result of having their minds stretched by bizarre sideshows and their pockets emptied with fixed games of chance favoring the establishment.

By 1947 Tyrone Power, once considered one of the handsomest young men in the picture business, had established himself as one of Hollywood's leading stars. However his career was now on the downhill side of the climb. Thus, he needed a shot-in-the-arm powerful role. In this extraordinary concept and novel to movie story of human karma he found it. The nomenclature of Geek had a far different denotation than it does today. Here we get a front seat look at the full impact of its original meaning. Nightmare Alley is the true career showcase for Power's range as an actor. He is superb in this unforgettable portrayal.

Wandered in on this classic many years ago, when it aired on WGN with no advance notice. I'd read a Houdini biography by William Lindsay Gresham, and seeing his name on this really got my curiosity up. Can't understand all the comparisons to "Freaks". They share a carnival setting, and little else. In these days of "Crossing Over", and psychic 1-900 hotlines, everybody should see this expose of the psychic business, possibly more important now, than then. Tyrone Power is excellent, playing against type, and showing more acting ability than many expected. The cast is virtually flawless, and the story remains timely. Having worked on a carnival myself, this film was very useful. Between this, and the gambling books of John Scarne, I started at the carnival with full knowledge of the scams that augmented their operations. I guess that a new print has been struck for arthouse showings, but we really need a lavish DVD presentation, with all the extras and documentation they can find!

--Judexdot1--

An old carnival mind-reader launches into his spiel: gazing into his "crystal ball" (a liquor bottle) he sees rolling green hills, a barefoot boy running through the grass, a dog at his side... "Yes, yes!" his listener eagerly confirms, at which the mentalist reveals it's just a stock reading: "Every boy has a dog," he laughs scornfully. Nightmare Alley is about the weaknesses of the human mind, the need for emotional comfort and assurance that leads people to trust tarot cards and psychics, not to mention religion and psychoanalysis. It's about how these weaknesses can be exploited and about the high cost—for the exploiter.

Nightmare Alley opens at a seedy carnival offering a strongman, scantily clad girls, a mind-reader, and the "geek," a grotesque and pitiful freak who bites the heads off live chickens for shock entertainment. The carnival is gorgeously filmed, from the sweaty crowds and banners to the foggy, deserted midway late at night. Circulating among the crowds is a new carny-worker, Stanton Carlisle, a gum-chewing hunk in a t-shirt watching the old hands at work. He's particularly intrigued by a verbal code that Zeena, the mentalist, once used in a highly successful mind-reading act, before her partner Pete became a hopeless drunk. Stan is obviously unscrupulous, ambitious, and ready to use his wiles on Zeena, but we don't see his true nature until a scene in which he saves the carnival by bluffing a sheriff (who has come to shut the place down) with a display of his "second sight." His face shining like a choir boy's, he spouts vague, sentimental mumbo-jumbo, manipulating and feeding off the man's emotions until he's putty in Stan's hands—and Stan loves every minute of it, reveling in his power, the primal joy of fooling a chump.

We learn that Stan was raised in an orphanage, where the combination of mistreatment and bible verses instilled a deep cynicism about faith and morality. In reform school he learned to get out of trouble by feigning spiritual conversion. Handsome, glib, charming, intelligent and shameless, Stan holds all the cards. He's lucky, too: Pete dies after Stan, who wants to get him drunk to pick his brains, inadvertently gives him wood alcohol instead of moonshine. (No one, including Stan, is ever sure if it was really an accident.) Stan teams up with Zeena and learns the code, then cheats on her with beautiful young Molly, and when they're forced to marry by Molly's enraged former boyfriend, he takes the opportunity to blow the carnival for a high-class nightclub act. Still unsatisfied, Stan drifts into spiritualism, bilking wealthy clients in exchange for contacting their dead loved ones. He finally goes too far, talking his wife into impersonating the ghost of one man's dead sweetheart; and he meets his match in Dr. Lilith Ritter, an icy psychiatrist who conspires with Stan only to cheat him. Since Stan's identity is built on his ability to cheat and feel superior to others, when someone else does the same to him, he falls apart. Stan's crack-up and rapid descent into alcoholic degradation happen a little too fast, but they've been foreshadowed from the beginning. Stan has always had a morbid fascination with the geek, and with Pete's disintegration: they speak to a hollowness at the heart of him, the lack of any love or faith. This one vulnerability in his otherwise hard-boiled character is what allows the audience to care about him, to see him as tragic and not merely a heel who gets what he deserves. The obviously tacked-on "happy" ending is laughable; the love of a good woman won't save this guy.

Matinée idol Tyrone Power, freed from the limitations of swashbuckling, is perfect as Stanton Carlisle, an homme fatale who blatantly exploits his good looks and sex appeal, even making a declaration of love to his wife (maybe honestly, maybe not) to get her to participate in a despicable scheme. It's hard even for the viewer, who sees how callous and selfish Stan is, to resist his oily brilliance and amorality. Power was eager to play this complex and unsympathetic role, and he does it justice, at the end of the movie undergoing a more thorough de-glamorization than any classic Hollywood beauty. Joan Blondell, no longer the bright-eyed cutie of the early '30s, is superb as Zeena: blowsy, aging but still attractive, she's a sharp yet good-hearted woman who sees through Stan, even if she can't fight her yen for him. Colleen Gray looks lovely and acts adequately in the ingenue role of Stan's ever faithful wife Molly, and Helen Walker is chilling as Dr. Ritter, the only person smarter and more ruthless than Stan. Her eyes shine with joy as she reveals what a fool she's made of Stan and cruelly mocks his mental weakness.

Nightmare Alley may be the most inky-black entry in the noir canon. There are no guns, robberies, arrests, or beatings, only the torments of the mind. As Pete says of booze, "The only thing this will help you forget is how to forget." Memory is the waking nightmare.

Usually when one has read about a film for many years without having the opportunity to actually see it, one is disappointed when the viewing actually happens -- not so with Fox's "Nightmare Alley". Boasting an excellent script(Jules Furthman) and direction (Edmund Goulding)it also showcases actors Tyrone Power, Joan Blondell, Coleen Gray and Helen Walker to great advantage. Seldom, if ever have they given such fine performances as they do in this classic film. It is surprising that 20th Century Fox would have put so much money and talent into a film that must have been very difficult to sell -- but this is major production in every department. The large cast and excellent sets are all well used. The dialog is far above average and the performers each make it come to life. Power is excellent and Blondell comes through with one the strongest performances of her career. If you want something a little different and done well enough to invite additional viewings, then you will want to pick up a copy of "Nightmare Alley". P.S.: The Commentary track is well worth a listen.

Even Judged by film noir standards, "Nightmare Alley" is irredeemably bleak. Its story involves scams, swindles, deceptions and betrayals as well as the ruthless exploitation of people who are either gullible, vulnerable or simply unwitting victims of treachery practised by those in whom they'd placed their trust. The central character's elevation from being a charismatic opportunist in a carnival to being a sophisticated nightclub mentalist is fascinating to watch but his inability to recognise his own limitations leads inevitably to the movie's most tragic and uncomfortable scenes.

Stan Carlisle (Tyrone Power) is a drifter who joins the carnival and quickly becomes interested in the mind reading act performed by Zeena Krumbein (Joan Blondell). He soon gets a job as her assistant and gets to know her alcoholic husband Pete (Ian Keith). Pete's predicament had been brought on by Zeena's past indiscretions and his level of degradation is only surpassed by that of the carnival "geek" (a debased human being who bites the heads off live chickens for the price of a bottle a day and somewhere to sleep it off).

Stan finds out from Molly (Coleen Gray), who is the assistant to the carnival strongman that Zeena and Pete used to be a top of the bill act in vaudeville and that their success was achieved by using an intricate word code. He subsequently charms Zeena into teaching him the code and later seduces Molly.

Stan and Molly leave the carnival and find great success with their new act in an exclusive venue in Chicago. During one of their performances a psychologist called Lilith Ritter (Helen Walker) tries to trick them by asking a question about her mother but is both surprised and impressed when Stan accurately replies that her mother is deceased. Stan and Lileth meet some time later in her office and when he realises that she routinely records the confidential information disclosed by her wealthy clients, sees an opportunity to use this material to move into a new role as a spiritualist.

Lileth, Stan and Molly subsequently conspire together to carry out an elaborate and potentially very lucrative stunt but when Molly becomes uncomfortable with the religious style which Stan adopts, she exposes the fraud. Stan is also then betrayed and swindled by Lilith. This sudden financial loss and the loss of his reputation combined with some feelings of guilt that he'd been harbouring for some time, ultimately bring about his spectacular and tragic downfall.

"Nightmare Alley" was not a box office success when it was first released and the cult status that it's since gained was due to the fact that a legal dispute over distribution rights led to it being unavailable for many years. This is a shame because it's a movie that deserves recognition on its own merits, Its story is engrossing and the portrayals of its colourful characters are top class. Tyrone Power is exceptional as the selfish conman who discovers that by using his considerable charm he's easily able to exploit others for his own gain. Coleen Gray is thoroughly believable as the unsophisticated and likable Molly and Ian Keith and Joan Blondell also contribute great performances. The most chilling characterisation, however, is provided by Helen Walker who is absolutely convincing as one of the coldest, most calculating and inherently evil women ever seen on screen. The low key lighting used by cinematographer Lee Garmes also perfectly matches the downbeat mood of the film and contributes strongly to its haunting atmosphere.

This riveting melodrama of corruption and ambition deals Stan(Tyrone Power) who along with phony fortune-teller named Zeena(Joan Blondell) and her drunk husband Pete(Ian Hunter) working the crowd to read mind. Later Stan conniving a scheming psychiatrist consulting(Helen Walker).

This is a magnificent noir drama of greed packs excellent performances specially by starring role Tyrone Power.Casting is frankly outstanding, giving extraordinaries acting, as Joan Blondell as the tarots expert, the alcoholic Ian Hunter, the robust Mike Mazurski, gorgeous Colleen Gray and the mean psychiatrist Helen Walker, among them. It exposes and denounces the flamboyant illusionists, fake spiritualists and discredited impostors spreading through America at the time . Critics applauded this interesting black drama of carnival life but lukewarm reception by public. Based on strange and controversial novel by William Lindsay obsessed by dark issues and who also committed suicide such as director. Tyrone Power in his most unusual character as the fake mentalist, an amoral and ambitious role who predicts past and future.This was the Power's best part ever.

This broody and thought-provoking picture is splendidly directed by Edmung Goulding(1891 London-1959 US ending his days committing suicide). He begun as boy actor and emigrated to America after service in WWI , became one of Hollywood's finest discoverer of the talents of its leading actress, as Joan Crawford in ¨Grand Hotel¨ and Bette Davis in ¨The great lie, The old maid and Dark victory¨ in which their relationship reached full flower. In the 40s Goulding tried something different and during his stay at Twentieth Century-Fox directed two Tyrone Power vehicles, ¨Razor's Edge¨and ¨Nightmare alley¨. But he didn't attain his wishes of winning a best director Oscar, though ¨The Razor's edge¨achieved nomination in the best film category. However ¨Nighmare alley¨, his best movie, didn't win prizes , neither nomination in spite of being a masterpiece and probably one of the most atypical from its time. Rating : top-notch classic, a must see and indispensable watching.

In Nightmare Alley, Tyrone Power is like the George Clooney of the 1940s, yet in a role with a pathetic side that Clooney has never dared to play. His cool, his eyes, his placid stance and walk, and his immovable self-confidence. Power is however more intense in this role than Clooney has ever been in any of his roles. Colleen Grey, the female lead, is one of the sexiest knockouts I've ever seen. I am sold when she first appears in her circus uniform, the glittery skivvies revealing that she is not skinny, but given to thick curves, especially in her smolderingly pliable and smooth hips. She plays a good-girl role, the role she always hated to play, wishing she had roles like Helen Walker's, who plays a wicked psychologist, and quite well.

The story is an interesting weaving of a con game, a horrific tale of descent, and a rags-to-riches story of luck. It's intriguing. Nightmare Alley is true film noir, whether it has gangs and guns or not, because we follow a main character who is suave and personable to without a conscience and almost a little ashamed of it. There are clever crimes, wicked antagonists, and dark, cutting cinematography. It's a must for noir fans.

Nightmare Alley is forever known in Hollywood as the film in which Tyrone Power made a total break with his typecast image, playing a completely evil and ultimately weak individual. Post World War II, Power made it clear to Darryl Zanuck that he was looking to expand his range as an actor. Zanuck reluctantly allowed him to do this film. He usually indulged his favorite at the studio. Of course he also had a backup plan just in case Nightmare Alley was a bust.

Well critically it wasn't a bust, Power got deservedly rave reviews for his portrayal of small time hustler and carnival sharpie Stan Carlisle. Power had a variation on his previous roles, he was either a straight out hero as in The Mark Of Zorro, Lloyds Of London, or The Razor's Edge. More often he was a combination hero/heel as in Blood And Sand, The Black Swan or A Yank In The RAF most of all in Rose Of Washington Square, probably the closest part to Stan Carlisle he had played before. Still he was never as unredeemingly evil as in Nightmare Alley on screen until his last completed film, Witness For The Prosecution.

Power is working in a small time carnival where Joan Blondell and Ian Keith have a mind reading act with a good code between them that allows Keith to pull some really strange and good answers out of left field. Power would like to learn it and does after Keith dies when he gets into some wood alcohol. Power then teams with Blondell.

He's forced to marry innocent young Coleen Gray when circus strongman Mike Mazurki thinks he's ruined her reputation. But even with the inconvenience of a wife, Power has his eyes on bigger game. He gets a mind reading act going at a swank Chicago nightclub and then partners with Helen Walker who is a quack psychologist.

Ty Power was great in the role, no question about that, but 1947 must have been a great year for scheming women. Helen Walker never gets the credit she's due for her part. She's every bit as bad as Power and more than up to whatever games he's playing. Her part is very similar to Jane Greer's in Out Of The Past which also came out in 1947.

The critics loved Power in Nightmare Alley, but 20th Century Fox took a big loss from it because the public wouldn't accept Power in so evil a role. Darryl Zanuck absolutely knew this would happen so he hedged his bets a little by withholding from release Captain From Castile, a big budget spectacular where you'll Tyrone Power at his most noble and heroic on screen without a bit of heel shading. That came out within six weeks of Nightmare Alley and Power's fans were appeased.

Power's character was a man essentially out of his depth in going for the big con. But as an actor in Nightmare Alley he expanded his range beyond anything anyone ever expected from him. Now Nightmare Alley is considered a cinema classic and box office bust that it was, it remained a personal favorite among Tyrone Power's films.

Though Darryl Zanuck preferred to forget the experience.

Tyrone Power always wanted to be considered an actor first, studly leading man second. It was not to be, though, as his public preferred the latter to the former. A recent book, "The Star Machine", goes into detail on the subject.

'Nightmare Alley' makes a strong case for his contention and is arguably his best performance (also check "the Eddie Duchin Story" and "Witness For The Prosecution"). I really think it should be on the AFI's all-time list, although it was a flop when first released. Can't find too many flaws in it - one could argue it should have been in color, but it is a Film Noir and color would diminish the overall feel of the film. Helen Walker is as lovely as she is treacherous and Colleen Gray is just passable. Old Pro Joan Blondell is effective as is Ian Keith.

'Nightmare Alley' is a very underrated and unheralded picture with a lot going for it, and is perhaps Director Edmund Goulding's best effort.

Directed by the English stage-director Edmund Goulding in 1947 on the Twentieth-Century Fox lot, this stylish B&W film, under-rated in its time, bravely sets out to tell the story of a totally disagreeable character --a carnival con-man turned spiritualist who eventually gets his comeuppance. It is notable in that one of Hollywood's most beautiful leading men, Tyrone Power, had the courage to play this unsympathetic and unappealing part: by the final sequences of the film, he even manages to make himself look wholly unattractive. The classic noir look --the deep shadows, the carnival atmosphere, the night scenes-- are helped enormously by the lighting and compositions of the great cinematographer Lee Garmes and the unusual casting: Helen Walker is particularly effective as the psychologist; the patrician Taylor Holmes as the rich man who is conned; and Joan Blondell, the lovable heroine of so many a Warner Bros. musicals, in one of the first of her blowzy roles.

Perhaps it's true that every actor is capable of at least one great performance and this was Tyrone Power's finest hour. He's terrific as a manipulative carny on the make in this much discussed but little seen classic from Edmund Golding, (it was also his best film). It's a great film noir superbly photographed by Lee Garmes in shades of black and white but it didn't follow a formulaic route and was, perhaps, too dark for audiences at the time. If the ending can be largely predicted from the opening frame the journey to it is continually gripping and unusual and Jules Furthman's script is a model of its kind, (it is taken from a novel by William Lindsay Gresham). With material this good, is it any wonder Power shone?

Nightmare Alley (1947)

Well, the reviews at its release were appreciative but mediocre, and the reviews on the DVD release were equally tepid and mixed. But for me, this is a perfect movie. To say it isn't your thing, that you want a socially pertinent drama ("On the Waterfront") or an inventive one ("Sunset Blvd.") or a really amazing noir ("Mildred Pierce" or "Double Indemnity"), all roughly from this era, is to miss the point.

This is a carny (carnival) film, and a story of the rise and fall of a charlatan. It has some noir elements including mostly night filming and a women (two) who are up to no good. And it has a hero with crossed stars, Tyrone Power, once a hunk and idol but now, for 20th Century Fox, reaching the end of his reign. He is, however, perfect here, because he begins as a charming, attractive carny worker and ends in ruins. Convincingly.

The plot is not simple, either. There is at first a sense of getting ahead by using a carnival trick of reading minds. Then there is a weirdly smart echo in modern psychiatry (with the psychiatrist played rather chillingly by Helen Walker). And so it ends up morphing into a kind of post-war scam and crime film (but without the noir staple of the detective in pursuit). Then threaded into this is an early love of sorts, played by another true star, Joan Blondell. Finally is the symbol of purity and goodness, played without cloyingness, played by a young and pristine Colleen Gray. Our main man Power has to navigate all these waters, among women with guiles and looks and money, alongside other temptations like fame and power.

There is a theme thrown in (and probably central to some viewers) about taking on too much power, of miming the powers of god, which is morally wrong, but this struck me as a small part of the whole effort. Larger were the romances, the trickery, and the filming itself.

Yes, in a way this is such a masterpiece of set design (the entire circus including a hundred real carnival performers was created on the studio lot), lighting, and photography. Indeed, the photography is textbook perfect, dazzling, subtle, beautiful, and self-sufficient. You could just watch, frame by frame, scene by scene, every single moment. I tried, I did, I never stopped gaping. The cameraman is no surprise, Lee Garmes, who had already won an Oscar in 1933 (for "Shanghai Express") and who helped Haller with "Gone with the Wind." If you see either "Caught" or "Detective Story" from this same period, you'll see him (paired with master directors) at his best.

The director here is a stalwart if unheralded Edmund Goulding, with several stunning movies under his belt including the breathtaking "The Razor's Edge." It's hard to overstate how fine "Nightmare Alley" really is. If a straight up drama isn't your thing, or if the visuals of a movie mean nothing to you, you'll perhaps find it simply very good. But some people, I am positive, will be as wowed as I was and am. Terrific.

A near perfect noir and yet, at the time of release, spurned by the studio themselves. Well, that's Hollywood! Anyway, we now have a superb DVD release and can all enjoy this wonderful film. From the great opening to the very end , this is all good, if very downbeat storytelling. Actually, a 'happy ending' has been tacked on at the very end, but I wouldn't imagine after all that has happened by then anyone would be taken in by it. there is a solid performance from Joan Blondell as the slightly, going to seed, 'mind act' performer and tarot enthusiast, Coleen Gray as the innocent would be femme fatale and a brilliant turn by Helen walker as the real thing with bells on. Wow, it is such a great performance, sexy, lovable but pure steel beneath the skin, a performance all the more impressive seeing as she was still recovering from a car crash and had limited movement. Mind you with such looks to kill, she had she didn't need to move very much. Tyrone Power turns in the performance of his career and it is a tragedy for him and for cinema that the studio should have so made certain that he did not get the re-launch he so wanted with this. This film is an absolute must see and you can be sure that whatever you are expecting you will be pleasantly surprised.

A tense film-noir melodrama that typically hovers between A-film status with Tyrone Power, a major star, some top-writers and an A-list director, but it has a very B-movie feel to it, mostly because of the film's unusual characterizations, the setting with the sideshow-artists and its subsequent reluctant release by 20th-century Fox. Due to these related rights issues the film was long unseen, and quickly assumed cult-status that lasted for a long time, but since its DVD-release, this film came out of obscurity and was generally received as a very fine and unusual noir-classic.

Tyrone Power is very impressive as Stanton Carlisle, a sideshow hustler who gets a menial job with a cheap carnival and becomes fascinated with a mind-reading act performed by Pete and Zeena (Ian Keith and Joan Blondell). Knowing a good con when he sees one, he learns the tricks of the mind-reading act from Zeena, and seduces her into recreating with him a more spectacular version of the act which relies on a secret word code which enables the spiritualist to discern the questions Carlisle has gathered from patrons in the audience. But soon, Molly (a drop-dead gorgeous Coleen Gray!), a pretty sideshow artist, falls for Carlisle, who is forced by the other Carnival people to marry the girl, and they move to Chicago. Soon, they both start a duo, successful club artist act, reading the minds of upper-class Chiacgo society. One night, a visiting psychologist, Lilith Walker (Helen Walker) is fascinated by Carlisle, and agrees to gives him confidential information about her wealthy clients in return for a substantial cut of the take. Molly, however, finds it increasingly hard to bilk people, and Lilith discovers some damning information about Carlisle form Zeena.

Many of the plot twists are a bit strained and not very credible, and the ultimate downfall of Carlisle seems a bit too far-fetched and extreme to me, but the atmosphere, the crisp photography by Lee Garmes and the acting are all of such high standards, it hardly matters. This was very much Tyrone Power's project, as he wanted to shed his image as just the handsome Saturday matinée-idol, and really wanted to embark on some more ambitious projects in which he could show his talents as a character actor. With this film, he more than proved his capabilities. This is perfect gritty, hard-edged noir, that I can only recommend.

Camera Obscura --- 8/10

The story of a young man (Power) who is a barker at a carnival in the Midwest. He's cuckolding this old drunk, accidentally kills him, and then coaxes "the code" out of the dead man's wife (Blondell). The two-person code is a secret way of pronouncing words that enables a blindfolded "psychic" to read and answer questions that his partner picks up from the audience. The act is a real moneymaker and soon enough Power deserts the carnival and takes off with a pretty young woman (Gray) for the Big Time in Chicago, playing night clubs.

The money rolls in but Power wants more. He falls in with a shrink (Walker) who has a closet full of secrets from her clients. With access to these he bamboozles a rich guy into handing over $150K. Power even gets Gray to pose as the man's long dead love, but Gray breaks down when she sees the "chump" fall to his knees and start to pray, and she blows the con. She and Power barely make it out of town ahead of the police. He sends her back to the carnival and begins hitting the bottle. Some time later he shows up at a carnival, a physical and mental shambles, and is given the lowest job available, a "geek" -- somebody who eats live chickens in return for a bottle a day and a place to sleep it off. He's a broken man but finally comes around when he accidentally joins a carnival that Gray is performing in. End of story.

This is well above average. Much of the credit must go to Tyrone Power in what has to be his best dramatic performance. He's always been good at projecting self confidence, and he does it here, but the script also demands that he turn into an alcoholic wreck and he's equally convincing. The other performances are quite good too, including Joan Blondell as a tough but nurturant floozy, and Colleen Gray, the profile of whose nose speaks for itself. She doesn't HAVE to be particularly good. All she has to do is stand there and you can't take your eyes from that baby-doll face.

Jules Furthman's script helps a lot in unobtrusive ways. In most movies of this type, the characters speak as if they had all graduated from Oberlin. Here they sound like real, working-class stiffs of the 30s and 40s -- dropping their "g"s and sayin' "ain't." The odd double negative don't mean nothing' to them. There isn't too much of this louche touch, just enough for it to slip past our apperceptive apparatus without calling attention to itself.

Ben Nye did the makeup. He ought to get a medal for what he does to Tyrone Power's eyes at the end. Power doesn't look grotesque or in any way overdone, but it's as if Dorian Gray's portrait had suddenly been revealed to us halfway through Wilde's tale. His eyes are just short of a gargoyle's. He looks the way we all sometimes feel in the morning.

Withall, I must say that some of the strength of Power's performance comes from corny overacting. He has two modalities in his presentation of self. One is his usual good-natured self-interested wise-guy cynic. The other is a saintly kind of smiling sing-song he employs while trying to con someone. Now, we in the audience know which is which because we've been clued in by what we've learned. But there are times when he uses his con-man persona on people who should know better, including his wife! Colleen Gray too is liable to lapse into emotional outbursts that don't give us the feeling that there's much behind them except energy. These are the kinds of wrinkles it's the director's job to smooth over and he was nodding at the time.

The photography by Lee Garmes is impressive. Great use of shadows and key lights. In fact the whole movie is pretty good. If only Power had stuck to his phony mentalist act and not dragged God kicking and screaming onto the stage. That's known as "hubris" and you know what happens when you pull THAT kind of stunt.

For me, the most telling scene appears near the end, when Power has become a dipsomaniacal hobo. He and a handful of other bums are huddled under a railroad trestle. Power is holding a bottle of whiskey and begins to demonstrate the carny trick called a "cold reading," using the bottle as a prop. Then he shrugs and makes some rueful comment. While he stares silently, the others take his bottle and pass it around. He shakes off his rumination, looks around with fright, and cries, "Hey, where's my bottle? There won't be enough left for me!" A vagrant replies, "Buddy, you're a real mind reader," and drains it. Power yanks the empty bottle from his hand, goggles at it, and then sucks from it desperately. When he looks around, the others are gone and a train is rattling like a calamity over his head. Potent stuff.

The ambitious Stanton "Stan" Carlisle (Tyrone Power) works in a sideshow as carny and assistant of the mentalist Zeena Krumbein (Joan Blondell), who is married with the alcoholic Pete (Ian Keith). 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 (Coleen Gray) that lives in the carnival with the strong Bruno (Mike Mazurki). Zeena and The Geek, an alcoholic man that bites the head off a live chicken 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 meets the psychologist Lilith Ritter (Helen Walker) and he finds that she tapes the sessions with her clients from the high-society. The trickster Stan envisions a scheme to raise a high amount of money swindling rich people. But his ambition brings him back to the life in the sideshow.

"Nightmare Alley" is an impressive and disturbing film-noir, with one of the best performances of Tyrone Power. The dark story of an ambitious man that climbs to the top of the world and bottoms out is very well constructed and supported by magnificent screenplay, direction and performances. Helen Walker is a scary femme fatale and Coleen Gray is gorgeous in the role of Molly. The unforgettable "Nightmare Alley" is certainly among the best film-noir of the cinema history and a must see. My vote is nine.

Title (Brazil): "O Beco das Almas Perdidas" (The Alley of the Lost Souls")

***SPOILERS*** Matinée idol and devilishly handsome Tryone Power as mind reader Stan Carlisle sheds his mostly good guy image in this very disturbing film noir flick where he ends up being what he's so much afraid off becoming all during the film a "Geek" or "Wild Man of Borneo" type in a carnival.

Stan gets very friendly with mentalist Zenna, Joan Blondel, whom he works with and finds out that she and her alcoholic husband Pete, Ian Keith, had this secret word code that they used in their mind reading act. Getting Pete drunk one evening in order to find out what this code is Stan accidentally gives him a bottle of wood alcohol instead of moonshine that ends up killing the poor man. Stan was earlier warned by Zeena that Pete's life is going to take a drastic turn for the worst due to her reading her Tarot cards on his future and sure enough that's exactly what happened with him drinking himself to death the very next day.

Torn between ambition and guilt Stan ends up leaving the carnival after he was caught having an affair with the circus strong man Bruno, Mike Mazurki, girlfriend Molly, Coleen Gray. Forced to marry Molly Stan and his new bride use the word code that both Zeena and Pate had to make headlines in the local newspapers with their new mind-reading act in the Chicago area.

It's when things couldn't be better for the two mentalists that Stan overreaches himself by trying to con rich and atheistic, whom Stan made a believer, Chicago businessman Ezar Grindle, Taylor Holmes, by trying to trick him into seeing his long lost love Dorrie whom he's carried a torch for some thirty years. Molly who was forced by Stan into tricking Grindle into thinking that she was his long lost Dorrie just couldn't go through with it and blew Stan's whole charade.

Knowing that it's now only a matter of time before the police catch up with him for defrauding Grindle out of $150,000.00 Stan make a bee line to psycho analyst Lilith Ritter, Helen Walker, whom he entrusted the money with. Helen in fact was a partner in crime, unlike his wife Molly, with Stan by giving him very personal and sensitive information of her client's hang ups and obsessions which included Ezar Grindle. It turned out that Stan wasn't exactly the smart cookie that we were lead to believe with him not realizing that Helen had him set up by secretly recording his conversations with her. Stan who knew that Helen recorded all her patients, which he was one of, seemed to have completely overlooked that fact and spilled his guts out revealing among other things that he was responsible for Pete's death as well as defrauding Grindle out of his money.

Helen giving Stan an envelop with what was supposed to be the $150,000.00 that he left with her instead replaced it with 150 one dollar bills which had Stan, who was on his way out of town, shoot right back to her office for his money that he needed for him and Molly to stay on the lamb. Helen expecting Stan to react the way he did had already called the police which checkmated Stans plans to get the money from Helen even if he had to murder her to get it.

Left on his own with Molly going back to the carnival Stan ends up back were we first saw him but this time he's almost unreorganized by everyone that he used to worked with. Needing a job and trying to get the carnival owner, who seemed to have completely forgotten who Stan is, to let him stay Stan is forced to do what he now knew he was born to be the carnival "Geek".

Shocking even now some sixty after it's release back in 1947 "Nightmare Alley" is without a doubt the most mind numbing and darkly disturbing movie to come out of Hollywood since Tod Browning's "Freaks" in 1932. You have to give actor Tyrone Power credit for going out of his way to get the role of Stan Carsisle a part that 20th Century studio, not wanting to hurt his handsome and matinée idol image, was very very reluctant to have him play. I for the life of me can't imagine an actor of Power's reputation, as a great lover and all around good guy, take a role like that back in the 1940's or 1950's.

Time has shown that Tyrone Power did the right thing in playing Stan Carlisle which turned out to be the most challenging role of his career. Power not only showed that he can convincingly play a low down rascal who took advantage of everyone who trusted him but that in him paying a "Geek" Power humanized this poor and faceless creature by not only giving him a face but the sympathy of the movie audience as well.

One cannot say that this is Tyrone Power at his most attractive, but you can say this was his most "adventurous" challenge in his career.

It is not a pretty picture - the story of his descent into "geekdom" and he has come through the test quite brilliantly. There is no doubt that the material is disturbing, and such a role would never have been envisaged as going to Power, but he must have fought Fox very hard to get the very different and provocative main part.

He is supported well by Coleen Gray, and particularly Joan Blondell - the rest of the cast shows what the "Carnies" life can be like. The underrated Helen Walker adds to the interest of such an offbeat movie. See it at your own risk of having a feeling of despair.