|
Pif Magazine
Pif Magazine |
Nightmare Alley (1947) Edmund Goulding’s film of William Lindsay Gresham’s 1946 novel Nightmare Alley may just be the great forgotten American film; it is certainly the darkest film that came from the Hollywood studio system in the '40s. It sadly does not exist on video. (I taped it off Los Angeles’s late, great Z cable channel several years ago, and the novel is currently out of print.) While Gresham’s novel is, by most accounts, stronger than the film (author Harlan Ellison called Gresham’s account of the carny geek "the most chillingly accurate description ever set in type"), you’d have to fast-forward well into the '50s and Billy Wilder’s Ace in the Hole and Alexander Mackendrick’s Sweet Smell of Success to find a darker, more cynical look at the dark side of post-war America. A never better Tyrone Power stars as Stan Carlisle, a small-time carny shill who sees the people who come to the carnival as rubes, hicks and marks. Stan is fascinated by the carny’s geek, a pathetic drunk who bites the heads off live chickens for a quick snort of booze. How can anyone, Stan wonders aloud, get that low? Stan shills for mind reader Zeena (the voluptuous Joan Blondell), a one-time vaudeville star whose act has been on the skids ever since her hubby and partner Pete (Ian Keith) took to the bottle in a big way. The carny’s pretty "electric girl," Molly (Coleen Grey), who is the property of strongman Bruno (Mike Mazurki), tells Stan that Zeena and Pete had a "code" for the mind-reading act that made them famous. Stan, eyeing the lovely Molly, decides to seduce the lonely Zeena in hopes of luring the code from her. Stan suggets a new mind-reading act to Zeena, the profits of which can help Pete take the cure for his boozing. Zeena agrees at first, but when she does a Tarot card reading that portends disaster, she pulls out. Fate steps in one dark night as Pete, who tells Stan how easy it is — with a few generalities and shared experiences — to "read minds," comes looking for a drink. Stan gives him what he thinks is a bottle of moonshine tucked away in a trunk, but it turns out to be wood alcohol from Zeena’s act, and Pete dies. Stan and Zeena revive the "code" and make their new act a sensation at the carnival. Stan becomes so adept at phony mind-reading that he sends a sheriff who comes to close the carny down because of the geek (and Molly’s skimpy costume) away with moist eyes and old-time religion. Stan wants Molly to leave with him, but when Zeena and Bruno discover Stan and Molly's plan to marry, they explode. Bruno almost kills Stan; Stan and Molly leave the carny and marry. Stan and Molly now start up a new act for rich Chicago patrons with great success, but in the audience one night is Stan’s match in the form of savvy psychologist Lilith Ritter (Helen Walker). Fascinated by Stan, she initially tries – and fails — to expose Stan as the phony he is, but her agenda goes far deeper than even Stan can imagine. From here, the film becomes the kind of cat-and-mouse game between Lilith and Stan that one sees now in the work of David Mamet. When Stan finds that Lilith makes recordings of her wealthy clients, Stan suggests they use the info in the "spook racket" — telling people about the dear departed. Soon, one of Lilith’s rich clients, Ezra Grindle (Taylor Homes), decides to expose Stan (now "the Great Stanton"), but Stan charms Ezra with information about his dead sweetheart, supplied by Lilith. He gives Stan 150 grand to start a "tabernacle" and offers even more if Stan can materialize his dead lover. Now crazed with ambition, Stan asks Molly to play the dead woman and appear in Grindle’s garden at night. Molly agrees, very reluctantly, but half way through the charade, she breaks down and confesses all. Stan makes a bee line to Lilith's — where he left his money for safe keeping — only to realize that he has been a mark, a rube, a hick, the awful screams of the carny geek returning now to haunt him. It is not hard to see the ironic ending coming, but that does not take anything away from this remarkable film. The script was written by Jules Furthman with the brilliant cinematography by Lee Garmes — both men having worked with Josef von Sternberg on some of his very best films (Macao, The Shanghai Gesture). Their work here is no less impressive. What ultimately makes the film so unusual and even a bit subversive is that for such a dark vision, the film operates well within the glossy studio sheen of the '40s. (Twentieth Century Fox made the film.) It only remains for the film to be resurrected and restored, and hopefully that is in the cards. If not, one of the great lost films stays lost — truly, in this case, a pity. Tell us what you think. Email talkback@pifmagazine.com Want Pif to review your book? Nick Burton lives in Newport Beach, California. His fiction has appeared in many small press and web publications, including: Chronicles Of Fiction, Pauper, and of course Pif. |
||||
