Nightmare Alley - Masters of Cinema series [DVD]

The early sequences of this film are nearly ageless in introducing the carnival world of marks and rubes, Gypsy fortune-tellers, unintelligent strongmen, and the unseen geek - a broken-down alcoholic who bites the heads off live chickens for a daily bottle of booze and a place to sleep it off. He does this while the conniving drifter Ray Stanton (Tyrone Power) looks on, plotting and scheming his next move.

Ray is a dashingly sexy carnival newcomer who desperately wants to become a fake clairvoyant and spiritualist. He works with Zeena (Joan Blondell), a mind reader, and her drunken husband Pete (Ian Keith). Zeena and her husband had once developed a priceless code that allowed them to do a first-class act in Vaudeville, but now Pete is too drunk to pull it off.

Ray is determined to get hold of the code, and one night tries to get Pete so drunk that he'll fess up with the secret. Pete eventually dies in an accident that is partly caused by Stan. With Pete now out of the way, Stan moves up to the big time, learning the code and working with Zeena. But Stan has fallen in love with Molly (Colleen Gray), the strongman Bruno's (Mike Mazurki) girlfriend. Stan and Molly run away together and get a job working as a mind reading mentalist in a ritzy Chicago nightclub....

During one of their acts, Stan meets an unscrupulous, and unethical psychiatrist Lilith Ritter (Helen Walker), who has been surreptitiously recording the sessions of her most wealthy clients. Stan talks her into working with him and together they plan even larger swindles, setting out to milk the town's richest and most powerful out of their cash. Stan is obviously drawn to Lilith but he remains haunted and even feels responsible for Pete's death.

When Zeena comes to visit and she reads his taro cards, she sees nothing but death and madness. Stan initially scoffs at all her hocus-pocus, but then his past begins to catch up with him. Becoming increasingly more paranoid, Ray seeks help with Lilith; she initially tries to talk him out of his madness. But is she as benevolent and compassionate as she seems? Because this is film noir, a terrible fate awaits Ray, and in the end, his life and career fall apart in the most insidious, furtive, and menacing way.

Power is absolutely superlative in this role, using his palpable physical beauty to create a character that is so obviously a greedy, avaricious, and unscrupulous user. In one instance, Lilith tells him that there's nothing inherently wrong with him: "You're a perfectly normal human being," she remarks. "Selfish and ruthless when you want something, kind and generous when you've got it."

Because Ray is intrigued and almost obsessed with the circus geek, their fates become almost intertwined, even after he has left the sleazy life of the circus behind him and become the darling of the society set. Zeena warns him to stay on track and to not become so greedy and covetous, but Ray's lust and unstoppable appetite for money and fame eventually get the better of him. Fate has dictated that no matter how triumphant and successful Stan becomes, he is preordained to have an almost calamitous fall.

Nightmare Alley is a beautifully realized, gorgeously lit, and absolutely seductive example of 40's noir. It is a must for Tyrone Power fans, and he gives one of his best performances as the steely, suave, and urbane Ray Stanton, a smooth, devilish, and totally sexy confidence trickster, who can charm, seduce, and out-talk almost anybody. Mike Leonard July 05. Read more ›