Nightmare Alley (1947)

User Rating:

7.7/10   

Director:

Edmund Goulding

Writers:

Jules Furthman (screenplay)
William Lindsay Gresham (novel)

Release Date:

28 October 1947 (USA)

Genre:

Drama | Film-Noir

Tagline:

He was all things to all men ... but only one thing to all women!

Plot:

Stanton Carlisle is an ambitious carnie who plays scams alongside phony mentalist Zeena and her alcoholic husband Pete...

Plot Keywords:

Alcoholic | Carnival | Mentalist | Con Artist | Rise And Fall

Cast

Tyrone Power	...	Stanton 'Stan' Carlisle
Joan Blondell	...	Zeena Krumbein
Coleen Gray	...	Molly
Helen Walker	...	Lilith Ritter
Taylor Holmes	...	Ezra Grindle
Mike Mazurki	...	Bruno
Ian Keith	...	Pete Krumbein

Runtime:

110 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Recording)

Certification:

UK:A (original rating) | UK:PG (video rating) | South Korea:15 | Finland:K-16 | USA:Approved (PCA #12396)

Company:

Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation

Trivia:

The telephone numbers of the Helen Walker character, Consulting Psychologist Lilith Ritter, are STAte 9862 (for her Office in the Lakeshore Building) and ROGrs Pk 8685 (for her Residence in the Belmont Apartments), both adjacent to the Lake Michigan waterfront on the near north side of Chicago.

Goofs:

Continuity: During Powers's cab ride away from Walker's apartment, the Chicago Theater is visible in the rear-projection behind the car. After several more minutes of driving, the cab turns around in front of the same theater.

Quotes:

Pete Krumbein: 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...
[...]

Movie Connections:

Referenced in I'm Not There. (2007)

Soundtrack:

The Boston Burglar

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.