No
doubt about it: Back in 1947, 20th Century Fox’s
Nightmare Alley (NA) left movie audiences shaken and stirred in ways that
would’ve startled even James Bond! Even the ominous score by Cyril
Mockridge
(My Darling Clementine; The Dark Corner;
Miracle on 34th Street)
plays like a carnival from Hell, deftly setting the sordid tone, and I mean
that as a compliment. How ironic that producer George Jessel was a
multi
-talented entertainer who had a big hit with what I consider the evil
opposite of
Nightmare Alley, namely the heartwarming classic song “My
Mother's Eyes,” one of my dear late mom’s favorite tunes. Even though the movie
version of
NA was softened a bit to give star Tyrone Power at
least a little shot at redemption, it was still strong stuff to unnerved
audiences seeing their beloved matinee idol in smooth scoundrel mode.
Jules
Furthman
(The Big Sleep; To Have and HaveNot; Rio Bravo) adapted the film based on William Lindsay Gresham’s
controversial 1946 novel which, according to Wikipedia, had in turn been inspired
by conversations with a former carnival worker while they volunteered with the
Loyalist forces in The Spanish Civil War.
Gresham
got started on the novel, his first, while working as an editor for a “true
crime” pulp magazine in
New York City
in the 1940s. He outlined the plot and wrote the first six chapters over
a period of two years, then finished the book in four months. Each chapter was
represented by a different
Tarot card. Director Edmund Goulding’s
films included
The Great Lie, Grand Hotel; and
The Razor’s Edge, the
latter reuniting him with star Tyrone Power. I’ll admit I used to think Power was
just another handsome pretty-boy matinee idol who was mostly style and little
substance. It took
Witness for the Prosecution
to make me realize that, to borrow a line from
The Producers, "there’s more to him then there is to him," and
NA confirmed
my change of mind!
 |
Forget the "missing link" - this carnival needs hot young
Stan Carlisle in a T-shirt! You're hired, kid! |
We meet handsome young carnival roustabout Stanton “Stan” Carlisle (Power),
who’s just begun his carny career. Standing in the carnival crowd, Stan checks
out the Ten-in-One, listening in almost morbid fascination to the spiel
introducing the carnival’s geek. The geek is usually a guy down on his
luck who can only get work biting the heads off live chickens. Goulding
cleverly keeps us viewers from actually
seeing the geek show onscreen,
distracting us with noisy crowds and shrieks from squawking chickens and
customers, but they get the point across well. Stan realizes he’s found
his calling. As he explains to co-worker and casual lover Mademoiselle Zeena,
a.k.a. Zeena Krumbein (the fabulous Joan Blondell of
Public Enemy; Three on a Match; Dames and more, still looking fab to boot!), “Lady,
I was made for it…This gets me. I like it. All of it.”
 |
Pete predicts: "I see a little silhouette of a man...
Scaramouche! Scaramouche!" |
 |
| Bruno and Molly: Beauty & the Big Lug! |
Zeena
takes care of her husband Pete (Ian Keith, who started in silent films like the 1935
Three Musketeers; the 1956
Ten
Commandments; and many film, stage, and TV appearances). She and Pete
used to have a great mind-reading act, but Zeena cheated on Pete, breaking his
heart and driving him to drink. Zeena feels terribly guilty about it, and she’s
been trying to make it up to the melancholy Pete ever since, hoping to get Pete back on his feet with "the cure." Meanwhile, Stan has his eye on Molly (Coleen Gray of
Kiss of Death;
Red River; Kansas City
Confidienital). She’s an innocent with a big boyfriend, Bruno, the
carnival’s Strong Man (Team Bartilucci favorite Mike Mazurki of
Murder, My Sweet; The Shanghai Gesture; Some Like it Hot,
and more!), who jealously tries to interrupt whenever Stan is nearby.
When Stan
learns of the mind-reading act Zeena and Pete had before they joined the
carnival, he tries to convince them to revive the act, but Zeena won’t go for
it: she and Pete are saving the act to sell as money for their retirement, plus
Pete is too drunk to do the bit well any more. Stan’s mind-reading
act starts to catch on when even the crusty local marshal becomes convinced of
Stan’s “second sight” after a poignant demonstration. But Zeena
is spooked when her tarot cards show death
- and sure enough, Pete is found dead. To his horror, Stan
realizes he unwittingly gave Pete wood alcohol to drink instead of his usual
moonshine! Stan may be shocked, but he’s no fool, so he keeps his mouth
shut. By the way, I'd like to state for the record that Joan Blondell and Coleen Gray are fabulous
babes!
 |
She was only Frankenstein's wife,
but she had a great pair of bolts! |
Meanwhile,
Stan and Molly become attracted to each other. It doesn’t hurt that Stan
also
loves Molly’s ability with the mind-reading gimmick! When Bruno
eventually finds out Molly and Stan have become an
*ahem* item, he and
the rest of the carnies force him into a shotgun marriage, literally! But
it becomes a blessing in disguise, because now Stan and Molly have the
code to themselves, launching them into the Smart Set in the swanky Spode Room
(Spode Room?!) in
Chicago. That code turns out to be a mighty useful wedding gift when
Stan polishes up their routine, repurposing himself as the swanky and wildly
successful mind-reader, The Great Stanton, with loving Molly as his lovely assistant!
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"I'm tellin' ya, there was a stage where she worked,
and some booths!" |
 |
| Stan's getting warm...warmer...you're red-hot, Doc! |
As
I’ve mentioned in the fabulous film noir magazine
The Dark Pages, Mazurki’s 56-year screen career began in his uncredited
film debut, 1934’s
Belle of the Nineties, and he continued to work in
films and TV
until his death in 1990.
His roles ranged from
comedies
(Neptune’s Daughter; Some Like It Hot) to suspense and film noir (The
Strangler in Jules Dassin's 1950 noir
Night and the City), including one of
Mazurki’s earliest roles in the 1945 movie version of
Dick Tracy, as
villain Splitface—and in one of his final roles, the 1990 film version of
Dick
Tracy! In fact, I first saw Mazurki on TV’s
The Monkees when I
was a kid, making him literally part of my childhood! Fittingly, Mazurki
and his old friend actor/producer Dick Powell also appeared together in several
Dick Powell Theatre episodes. Mazurki even appeared in singer Rod Stewart’s 1984
music video “Infatuation,” as a bodyguard forcefully protecting alluring Kay
Lenz from obsessed shutterbug Stewart.
Nightmare
Alley
has long since been hailed as a classic, but upon its 1947 release,
it
wasn’t exactly the feel-good movie of the year! 20th
Century-Fox gave it a strong ad campaign, but audiences protested what was then
scandalous content.
 |
The Great Stanton's next great feat: guessing what's
in the pinata at the fabulous Spode Room! |
In
the great tradition of “Six Degrees of Separation,”
Murder, My Sweet and
Nightmare Alley led to great changes for the
better in the careers of both Mazurki
and Dick Powell. As a result,
neither
Nightmare Alley nor
Murder, My Sweet would pack as much
of a punch without Mazurki!
As
sordid as
Nightmare Alley must have seemed back in 1947, the wily,
out-for-himself Stan isn’t quite as sharp as he thinks he is. Beneath the
slick demeanor he’s created for himself, there are chinks in Stan’s armor,
especially when he encounters Zeena and Bruno again. Even with The Great
Stanton’s nightclub success, the small but smoldering spark of Stan’s guilt
over Pete’s accidental death, and the superstition underlying Zeena’s tarot
cards, are slowly, surreptitiously wearing down Stan’s confidence, like Chinese
water torture.
At
the height of Stan and Molly’s success with their mind-reading act, who should
drop by to say “Howdy” but Stan and Molly’s old carny friends
Bruno and Zeena! Innocent Molly is happy to see them, but Stan is less
than thrilled, certain that Molly must have blabbed about using Zeena and
Pete’s code for their classy act. A friendly game of cards should loosen
things up — until Zeena goes for her Tarot deck. Stan doesn’t want Zeena
to flip that tarot card, but she does so anyway. It comes up as “The
Hanged Man”—
uh-oh, maybe Stan should quit while he’s ahead! Anyone
for Go Fish? Later, Stan gets a massage to calm himself down, only to
find he can’t help smelling the rubbing alcohol, reminding Stan of the wood
alcohol with which he’d accidentally fatally poisoned Pete.
 |
Dr. Lilith Ritter's a shrink,
but no shrinking violet! |
An
elegant woman turns up at the Spode Room and catches Stan’s act. She
looks
very interested — a groupie, perhaps? It turns out the lady
in question is Dr. Lilith Ritter (Helen Walker, from
Call Northside 777; The
Big Combo; the 1945 version of
Brewster’s Millions). The lady also
happens to be
a shrink, though I’m sure she’d prefer to be referred to
as a psychiatrist. She’ll be called another name or two as the film goes on when
she and Stan forge an unholy alliance to exploit Lilith’s patients for fun and
profit!
*Tsk tsk*, what’s the world coming to when you
can’t even trust your therapist to keep your confidences? Wait’ll the AMA
hears about this!
Walker makes a magnificent femme fatale, with her Mona Lisa smile hiding plenty of
trouble.
Is
it all just nerves, or is fate messing with Stan, or is it payback time for all
of Stan’s chicanery? Things come to a head when Stan collapses while doing a
reading in his act about a young girl named Caroline, now deceased. Now
it seems the resourceful Stan has branched out again and become a mentalist
(where’s Simon Baker when you need him?) with the ability to talk to the dead —
so versatile! Of course, it helped that Stan’s new cohort Dr. Ritter has
joined forces with Stan to get her unsuspecting patients’ files for
authenticity. The rich, powerful Ezra Grindle (Taylor Holmes), who misses
his late daughter terribly, is interested in what Stan has to say, explaining
to Molly, “I told him he wasn’t ready yet for spiritual communion. He should
prepare himself a little more with prayer and good works. He gave me
enough to start building the finest tabernacle in the country…and he’s going to
buy me a radio station of my own.”
 |
Stan, you've let yourself go!
Life ain't pretty when you're a carny geek! |
There’s
always a catch, of course. Stan’s catch is that Grindle wants
proof. So Stan fixes Molly up to look like his beloved “Dory,” despite
Molly’s misgivings. The ruse is nearly completed when Molly’s guilty
conscience gets the best of her. Dr. Ritter swaps Stan’s money from the
scam for a measly $150, and she tries to convince Stan that he’s losing his mind because
of his guilt complex — as if! Trying to do the right thing for Molly’s
sake (for once!), Stan puts Molly on a train, and he lives the hobo life.
Sooner or later, all roads lead to
Rome,
er, home eventually, and Stan finds the only job available in the carnival: the
geek! Oh, how the mighty have fallen! But there’s hope for
redemption and love after all when it turns out Molly is working at this
carnival as well.
Vinnie games the rig - It's amazing how good a look at the world of a carnival sideshow this film is, and from so many years ago. It's fun to hear them talking about the "Ten-in-one", a classic setup of carnivals where they promise ten unique acts or performers for one fee, a dime back in the day. Of course, in a classic ten-in-one, each act would be selling souvenir photos, or pamphlets on how to juggle, or the like, and a ten-cent admission could end up costing you a couple dollars at the end. It's also always fun to hear the original definition of "geek" as well.
One of the things about this film that just amazes me is the fact that they explain, clearly and distinctly, for all to see, how carny psychics (a term which here means "all psychics") con people. Stan is briefly fooled by a fortune telling that seems to speak to him personally, only to learn that he's just had a "cold reading." The psychic will drop a bunch of very generic statements onto the table that could refer to anything. The mark will do all the work for them, figuring out what the vague clues mean. Saying "I see an 'M'..." will get the mark to pore through all the dead people they know for one whose name starts with M. It's easy to learn, as Stan does in the film, and soon he's got people wrapped around his finger.
Of course, people will ever claim that yes, sure there are some fraudsters out there, but THIS guy is the emis. And all I say is to watch any of the TV psychics, like the guy on the Sci-Fi channel (a delicious irony), and watch how they throw out only the most tenuous of feelers, and the person being read will grab onto them, inferring meaning where none was implied.
Here's the address for more of this awesome film noir magazine:
The Dark Pages
P.O. Box 2716
Chicago, IL 60609-2716http://hqofk.wordpress.com/2013/01/12/first-look-dark-pages-special-nightmare-alley-issue/
