Hi all
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Jessica_Rabbit69 — 9 years ago(January 05, 2017 01:51 PM)
I'm glad you watched it because of my review. I actually just posted it on this thread, not on the movie page. I could post it again, but I just looked at it again and I simply got carried away with my writing, the review is too long and rambling. It needs some serious editing.
I too didn't think the ending was optimistic. In the end, Molly and Stanton are simply the mirror image of Zeena and Pete, the nurturer and the hopeless down-and-out alcoholic for whom there is no salvation anymore. At best, Stan seems to have fallen into the position of Pete at the beginning of the film, rescued from oblivion by a woman who cares for him. But theirs was never a happy arrangement.
He is saved by Molly from becoming the Geek, for now at least, but his future doesn't exactly look bright. Maybe Stan has not become the Geek, but he has become Pete.
Stanton will end like Pete, dead of some bad liquor. And the love of a good woman will not save him. The films ends how it started.
Jessica Rabbit
"I'm not bad. I'm just drawn that way." -
Spikeopath — 9 years ago(January 06, 2017 06:20 AM)
It's a personal favourite so it's great to see such a positive and intelligent review. I'll just piggyback your review with my own so as to add more weight.
Don't forget, to err is human- -to forgive- -divine.
Nightmare Alley is directed by Edmund Goulding and adapted to screenplay by Jules Furthman from William Lindsay Gresham's novel. It stars Tyrone Power, Coleen Gray, Joan Blondell, Helen Walker, Taylor Holmes and Mike Mazurki. Music is by Cyril J. Mockridge and cinematography by Lee Garmes.
The rise and fall of Carnival Barker, Stanton Carlisle..
Picture opens with Cyril Mockridge's ominous music, sprinkled with carny strains, it's a portent of what is to come. The characters of this particular travelling carnival then enter the fray, boxed in by Lee Garmes' shadowy photography. Mood is set at dark, not even the sight of a handsome Tyrone Power can shift the feeling that there is bleakness coming our way. Thankfully, that is the case.
Due to a legal dispute, Nightmare Alley was out of the mainstream circulation for over fifty years. A crime that robbed a whole generation of film noir lovers the chance to sample this excellent picture. Power had himself purchased the rights to Gresham's novel, determined to expand his range and break free of his typecasting as a Matinée Idol, Power wanted to play bad and got his wish. In the process giving arguably his finest career performance as Stanton Carlisle, a small time hustler who gleefully casts away human feelings to rise to the top as part of a spiritualist/mind reading act. But this is film noir, and around the corner are people just as unscrupulous as he is.
Have I ever mentioned God in this racket?
Very talky for the most part, it's the backdrops to the story that serve the narrative so well. Be it the carnival and the assortment of characters that inhabit it, or the up market club where Stanton and his wife, Molly (Gray), use psychological trickery on the affluent members of society, there's a disquiet, a sadness even, to proceedings, with Goulding and Furthman also casting an acerbic eye on social institutions and religious fervour. The latter of which provoked complaints from religious orders. There's barely a good or level headed human being to be found for the whole running time, picture is full of phonies and con-artists, gullibles and straw clutchers, beasts and alcoholics, it's no wonder the suits at the PCA got all twitchy! This is a bleak world view, and had it finished two minutes earlier, then we would be talking about one of the finest of all film noir endings. Sadly 20th Century Fox chief Darryl Zanuck had Goulding tag on a coda to get past the PCA. Not a film killer, no sir, but a disappointment for sure.
Lilith: A female demon of the night.
The team assembled for the production is of a high quality. Power and Goulding may be out of place in the genre of film noir, but they both come out with much credit. The former is thoroughly absorbing and the latter knits it together without fuss; letting the actors fully form Furthman's (To Have and Have Not/The Big Sleep) seductively crisp screenplay, while Garmes (Scarface/Detective Story) brings the chiaroscuro, which makes a nice devilish bedfellow for Mockridge's (Road House) music. Benefiting most from Goulding's direction is Helen Walker (Murder in the Music Hall/Call Northside 777) as Lilith Ritter, an excellent portrayal of the icy cold psychiatrist who forms an intriguing axis between the three women in Stanton's life. Both Gray (Kiss of Death/Kansas City Confidential) and Blondell (Cry Havoc) earn their money as polar opposites jostling for Stanton's attentions, and Ian Keith gives a heart tugging performance as alcoholic Pete Krumbein, a critical character that spins the protagonist into a vortex of smug charlatanism-cum-self loathing.
Now available on DVD with a lovely transfer, this is worthy of a delve for the film noir dwellers. 9/10
The
SpikeopathHospital Number
217 -
telegonus — 9 years ago(January 07, 2017 01:36 PM)
Good review of
Nightmare Alley
, Spike. I've seen it maybe twice in its entirety, like it but it's not a favorite. You may well have nailed it with your calling it "talky". The narrative drive just isn't there, or not for me anyway. The movie feels like a Ty Power vehicle, which it sort of is,and it's one of his bestthough it might have been better with a bit less Ty and a somewhat more Nightmare. Edmund Goulding was a fine director, and he did get some excellent performances out of his cast. My favorite is Ian Keith's as the dipso geek. His scenes are haunting. Yet overall, stylistically, the picture just doesn't jump off the screen.
Comparisons with Tod Browning's
Freaks
are near inevitable, but it's really a different sort of film. The Browning was sort of an exploitation art film horror, while the later film is more carny
noir
on steroids. Problem: the steroids don't kick in. I think it would be better to compare
Nightmare Alley
with Siodmak's
The Killers
and the Jules Dassin
Brute Force
. Those two rock; and in their best scenes they really do jump off the screen.
Nightmare Alley
feels too genteel for the kind of story it's telling; yet for all that, its gentility doesn't ruin the film, it just keeps it from being the classic it might have been with a stronger beat. -
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Manton29 — 9 years ago(February 07, 2017 02:04 PM)
Fantastic film and seemingly one we should be grateful ever existed.
Pair it with Tod Browning's equally great FREAKS (1932) for a killer Carny Noir double bill.
Great performance by Power and any fans of Joan Blondell will not want to miss out on her tough dame. Also, fans of Power might want to check out the excellent Noirish Western he starred in called Rawhide, with Susan Hayward.
If to stand pat means to resist evil then, yes, neighbour, we wish to stand pat. -
Spikeopath — 9 years ago(January 03, 2017 12:49 PM)
The Man Who Cheated Himself (1950)
She's no good, but she's good for me!
The Man Who Cheated Himself is directed by Felix E. Feist and written by Seton I. Miller and Phillip MacDonald. It stars Lee J. Cobb, Jane Wyatt, John Dall and Lisa Howard. Music is by Louis Forbes and cinematography by Russell Harlan.
Ed Cullen (Cobb) is a cop who is having an affair with wealthy Lois Frazer (Wyatt). When Lois, in a fit of panic shoots dead her husband, it cause Cullen no end of grief. You see, he was there as well, a witness to the crime
Don't forget to change your will.
This is a film noir entry that contains most of the elements that form that brand of film making. Something of an under seen - and undervalued - piece, it manages to rise above a few minor itches to play out as potent. Cullen (Cobb excellent) gets spun into a vortex of self inflicted trouble on account of his eye for a dame, essayed by a cast against type Wyatt. Both are unfaithful, she's unreliable and he's quick to break his own laws with dishonesty and a corruptible soul.
Things spice up when Cullen's younger brother, Andy (Dall), himself a police officer, joins his brother in investigating the "now" mysterious murder case. So we have a family crisis brewing as the younger Cullen tries to crack the case, all while his elder brother tries to throw him off the scent of his own complicity. Wonderful, because like a few other great noirs (Scandal Sheet, The Big Clock et al) we have a protagonist effectively investigating himself. And with the brothers being polar opposites in life values, it keeps things simmering nicely in the intrigue pot.
The dialogue is often clippy and the police procedural aspects are finely played with believable strokes. Close calls come and go as the detective work lurches from almost solved and closed to "hang on a minute something smells fishy here" , while tricky collusion's smile like a Cheshire cat. The great Russell Harlan (Gun Crazy/Riot In Cell Block 11) continually keeps things moody with shadows and low lights, whilst simultaneously bringing to life the splendid San Francisco locations. None more so than for the finale filmed out at a derelict and decrepit Fort Point, a perfect setting for noir if ever there was one (Hitchcock and Boorman thought so too!)
Wyatt is just about convincing enough as a femme fatale, but you can't help but ponder what one of the true noir actresses could have done with the role. While you can't get away from the fact that really both Cullen and Frazer simply had to front up for a self defence case at the beginning and there would have been no hassle. But as weak as that aspect is, there wouldn't have been this noir tale to tell, all of which is helmed with careful and knowing hands by Feist (Tomorrow is Another Day). 7.5/10
The
SpikeopathHospital Number
217 -
Jessica_Rabbit69 — 9 years ago(January 03, 2017 02:29 PM)
Still haven't seen it. It's on youtube so I will rectify this mistake soon. I'm interested in seeing Jane Wyman as femme fatale, it seems to be odd an casting choice.
Jessica Rabbit
"I'm not bad. I'm just drawn that way." -
Jessica_Rabbit69 — 9 years ago(January 06, 2017 12:43 PM)
Oops, that's the one I meant. Talk about odd casting choices, Angela Lansbury was cast twice as femme fatale. In
Please Murder Me
with Raymond Burr which I've seen and in
A Life at Stake
which is still on my list. I guess she pulled it off, barely though.
Jessica Rabbit
"I'm not bad. I'm just drawn that way." -
XhcnoirX — 9 years ago(January 06, 2017 03:44 PM)
No, it's definitely not Lansbury. She's miscast as a sexy, alluring femme fatale but at least she can act. Her co-star Keith Andes can't (at least not in this movie), and there is zero chemistry The story is also really pedestrian, and the overall directing and cinematography is mediocre at best. At least it has a ridiculous ending involving a door leading to almost literally nowhere, but still
I enjoy low/no budget B-noirs, and some are pretty bad Objectively speaking, they're probably worse than this movie. But I struggled to finish this movie, more than any other noir I've watched so far. -
MsELLERYqueen2 — 9 years ago(January 03, 2017 03:04 PM)
I like that film! It makes me think of both
Double Indemnity
and
Pushover- someone in a position of power/trust helps a
femme fatale
to commit a crime, and then he has to cover his (and her) own tracks.
Jim Hutton (1934-79) & Ellery Queen = - someone in a position of power/trust helps a