“Nightmare Alley.” (1947)

Several Hollywood stars fought in WWll. Jimmy Stewart was a trained pilot who was initially assigned as an instructor. At his insistence, he was given a bomber command and flew combat missions over Germany. Kirk Douglas served on a sub-hunter. Clark Gable was in the Army Air Coros and Tyrone Power joined the Marines. Power was involved with the Battle for Okinawa. Many others served in rear echelon roles - John Ford assembled a crew that famously made training films. Still others worked in morale - touring with ir without uniformed roles. When it was over, many returned to Hollywood and felt that they could no longer make the kinds of escapist movies of the pre-war years. Stewart wanted more realism, more serious work. Out of the desire came “It’s A Wonderful Life.” We see this as a fun endearing holiday movie today but it is, at heart, a fairly dark film - the Angel is, after all, trying to persuade George not to kill himself. Tyrone Power felt much the same way. He pushed the studio to buy the rights to the book and saw this film, his first after the war, as his opportunity to do some serious work. The book was popular as it detailed the rise and fall of an unredeemable con-artist and heel against the seedy, sleazy background of bottom tier carny life. Power got good reviews but the film flopped despite a somewhat more upbeat ending than the book. Power was persuaded then to return to more fanciful swashbuckling roles such as “Captains From Castile.” (1947) etc. interestingly, his late work in films such as “The Sun Also Rises” (1957) and “Witness For The Prosecution” (1957) got him that “serious” actor credibility he desired. Sadly, he passed shortly thereafter. The film was recently remade. As the Production Code was still in force in 1947, the earlier film had to leave some things to the imagination. The remake doesn’t have those limitations.