Nightmare Alley (1947)

The rise and fall of Stan Carlisle (Tyrone Power) an ambitious but ruthless carnival barker who sees a way out of the carnival when he finds out about a valuable blindfold 'psychic' codebook owned by a couple of fellow carnys (Joan Blondell and Ian Keith.)

An accidental death speeds the process of him getting his hands on it; and a shotgun wedding is the opportunity he needs to team up with an attractive Electric Girl performer (Coleen Gray, “I’m only sorry that I didn’t think of it earlier.”)

Pretty soon they are in high demand and performing The Great Stanton, a mentalist act in high-end night clubs.

Lilith Ritter (Helen Walker) a shady, coldhearted psychologist who has been recording her clients’ sessions sees the act, and they mutually recognize each other as fellow charlatans.

It is not completely clear why the recordings were made, (she has an unconvincing excuse,) but it might be safely assumed she was simply waiting for an opportunity to blackmail them.

Secretly teaming up with the now famous psychic they violate patient confidentiality and use information from the secret recordings to fake psychic readings.

And when they see the opportunity dip their toes into spiritualism they do so to ultimately deadly results.

The recent Guillermo del Toro may have a few missteps in it (in a nutshell: bloat) but at the very least can be used to highlight just how well crafted the original version was.

Where del Toro gets distracted by fleshing out supporting characters, showing the graphic effects of violence; presenting nifty freak effects (a preserved cyclopean baby, Schlitzy and the Chicken Lady from Freaks (1932) are somewhere in the background, etc.); Stan’s backstory (which differs from what is seen here, where all it requires are a simple couple of lines of exposition,) etc.

The added production values in the recent remake, as nice as they are to have, don’t really add anything to the story, and even the addition of color could be seen (was seen) as an intrusion, but was somewhat solved by the special B&W edition, (except for the fact that B&W photography seems to be a dead art already.)

James Agee wrote of the original version “...It would be unbearably mawkish if played too solemnly…” and that is precisely how del Toro fails.

The original version, however, is a story stylishly, skillfully, and elegantly told.

There is no fat. There are no slow bits.

Characters are given just enough background and only as needed. Motivations are always clear or made just clear enough.

Stan’s feeling of superiority to the rest of humanity is made abundantly clear: he is fascinated by the geek (“How could anyone sink so low?”); he refers to the carnival’s patrons as ‘chumps’, ‘yokels’, and ‘boobs’; and as soon as he leaves the carnival, he calls his previous coworkers ‘freaks’.

In typical Film Noir homme fatale fashion not only is he set to fall, but he also brings those around him with him.

The tragedy isn’t so much that he falls: That is merely a sort of grim justice.

The tragedy is that his fall is witnessed by one who loves him.

There is no certain supernatural content.

The psychic readings are attributed to trickery and psychological insight. It’s curious that psychology is equated with this fakery, but it’s also abundantly clear that both Lilith and Stan and just about equally insightful.

And yet, the tarot readings are not only believed by most to be true (Stan doesn’t believe them, or claims not to,) but are also, by the end, accurate.

A point is also made that he is offending God by wanting to start a tabernacle, (though his response about not taking the name of God in vain is pretty good,) and that his punishment is of divine origin.

Some have argued that, by the end, he comes to believe he has psychic powers himself. It doesn’t seem to me that is the case, he is simply a shrewd manipulator who lies as he sees fit.

Also, with Taylor Holmes and Mike Mazurki.

A groundbreaking cult Noir whose grim view of humanity would not be equaled until Billy Wilder came to the scene.

Not to be missed!