Review: Tyrone Power Struts Through Original "NIGHTMARE ALLEY"

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 71 of 2021 (No. 1809) by Leroy Douresseaux

Nightmare Alley (1947)
Running time:  111 minutes (1 hour, 51 minutes)
DIRECTOR:  Edmund Goulding
WRITER:  Jules Furthman (based on the novel by William Lindsay Gresham)
PRODUCER:  George Jessel
CINEMATOGRAPHER:  Lee Garmes (D.o.P.)
EDITOR:  Barbara McLean
COMPOSER:  Cyril Mockridge

DRAMA/FILM-NOIR

Starring:  Tyrone Power, Joan Blondell, Coleen Gray, Helen Walker, Taylor Holmes, Mike Mazurki, and Ian Keith

Nightmare Alley is a 1947 American film noir drama directed by Edmund Goulding and starring Tyrone Power.  The film is an adaptation of the 1946 novel, Nightmare Alley, which was written by William Lindsay Gresham.  Nightmare Alley the film focuses on the rise and fall of a con man.

Nightmare Alley opens at a seedy traveling carnival and introduces the carnival's barker, Stanton “Stan” Carlisle (Tyrone Power), who is fascinated by everything at this place where he works.  Stan works with Zeena Krumbein (Joan Blondell), who performs as the mentalist, “Mademoiselle Zeena,” with her alcoholic husband, Peter “Pete” Krumbein (Ian Keith).  At one time, Zeena and Pete were a top-billed vaudeville act, and the two of them used an ingenious code to make it appear that she had extraordinary mental powers.  However, the duo has been reduced to working in carnivals, and Pete is a severe alcoholic.

When Stan learns that many people want to buy the code that Zeena and Pete once used, he wants it, too.  Zeena rebuffs Stan's attempts to get the code, but one night, while the carnival is in Burly, Texas, a terrible accident provides Stan with the opportunity to get the code.  With Molly (Collen Gray), a young carnival worker by his side, Stan becomes “The Great Stanton” the acclaimed mentalist.  But can this “uncommonly shrewd young trickster” (as one character refers to him) escape his troubled past, his guilt, and his fate?

I became interested in Nightmare Alley when I heard that Oscar-winning director Guillermo del Toro was going to remake it.  Actually, del Toro's film is less a remake and more a new adaptation of William Lindsay Gresham's novel.

Regarding the 1947 film:  apparently, Tyrone Power (1914-1958) wanted to play the role of Stanton Carlisle in order to expand his career beyond playing romantic leads and swashbucklers.  These were the roles that made him a matinee idol in Hollywood in the mid-1930s and early 1940s, his star being born with 1936's Lloyd's of London.  Stan is a good character to play.  He is complicated and complex because he is not one thing.  Stan can be ruthless and cruel and kind and considerate from one moment to another.  He is highly skilled at the things in which he endeavors, but his greatest skill is his ability to con even the most skeptical people.

Stan is the kind of character who is perfect for a story of the “rise and fall” of an ambitious person, and this film is about the rise and fall of Stanton Carlisle, except that isn't a plot.  The film follows Stan around, but the movie does not have a hook that really captures the audience's interest.  It is not until an hour into the film when the narrative finally engages a conflict, which involves a psychiatrist, Lilith Ritter (Helen Walker), who is also Nightmare Alley's “femme fatale.”  That's when we get the hook in the form of con job that is brilliant if it is successful and disastrous if even one thing goes wrong.

Upon its initial release, Nightmare Alley proved to be scandalous, in part because of the way religion plays a part in Stan's cons, and it was not a box office success.  Over time, the film has apparently gained a following and is considered a classic of the film noir genre.  Whether or not it is classic film noir is up to the viewer, although I don't consider it a classic.  Nightmare Alley is not a great film, but there are times when it is really good.

However, I cannot help but find myself impressed by Tyrone Power's layered performance.  Power really does make Stanton Carlisle feel like a genuine person, and he conveys Stan's dark side in a way that makes me pity him rather than dislike him.  I am certain that over the years, other viewers felt the same way.  I think that film noir fans will want to see this, and if there are any Tyrone Power fans still out there, they will want to see Nightmare Alley.

7 of 10
B+

Monday, December 13, 2021


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Review: "Out of the Past" is an Entertaining Film-Noir (Happy B'day, Kirk Douglas)

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 44 (of 2005) by Leroy Douresseaux

Out of the Past (1947) – Black & White
Running time: 97 minutes (1 hour, 37 minutes)
NR – not rated by the MPAA
DIRECTOR:  Jacques Tourneur
WRITERS:  Geoffrey Homes (based upon the novel Build My Gallows High by Geoffrey Homes)
PRODUCER:  Warren Duff
CINEMATOGRAPHER:  Nicholas Musuraca
EDITOR:  Samuel E. Beetley
COMPOSER: Roy Webb

FILM-NOIR/DRAMA/THRILLER

Starring:  Robert Mitchum, Jane Greer, Kirk Douglas, Rhonda Fleming, Richard Webb, Steve Brodie, Virginia Houston, Paul Valentine, Dickie Moore, and Ken Niles with (no screen credit) Theresa Harris, Caleb Peterson, and Wallace Scott

The subject of this movie review is Out of the Past, a 1947 film noir drama and thriller from director Jacques Tourneur.  The film is based on the 1946 novel, Build My Gallows High, by Geoffrey Homes (the penname of author Daniel Mainwaring), who also wrote the screenplay adapting his novel for this film.  Frank Fenton and James M. Cain also contributed to the writing of the screenplay, but did not receive screen credit.

Out of the Past stars Robert Mitchum as a private eye who escapes his past and runs a gas station in a small town.  Kirk Douglas and Jane Greer star as the hood and his dame (respectively), and they are the past that catches up to the former private eye.

Out of the Past is a definitive classic of film noir; some even consider it the best noir film ever.  It is certainly a film that stands the test of time because it is not only fondly remembered and on the National Film Registry, it was also remade as the 1984 film, Against All Odds.  Who can forget Phil Collins’ powerful theme song for the film?

Jeff Bailey (Robert Mitchum) is a gas station owner with a troubled past.  It catches up with him when a tough looking, film heavy named Joe Stephanos (Paul Valentine) comes looking for Jeff and tells him he needs to take a trip.  Stephanos and his employer are “acquaintances” of Jeff’s.  So Jeff’s trip is to pay a visit to that old friend, gambler and mobster, Whit Sterling (Kirk Douglas).  It turns out Jeff was once a private eye named Jeff Markham (told in a flashback) whom Sterling hired to find his mistress, Kathie Moffat (Jane Greer), a drop-dead gorgeous woman who’d shot Sterling several times and disappeared with 40,000 of Sterling’s dollars.  Bailey did find her, but the unexpected (or expected) occurs.  Now, Sterling wants payback, so he coerces Bailey into taking another job for him, one that might cost Jeff his neck or a trip to the gas chamber.

Out of the Past has all the things that marks a movie as film noir, especially the lighting, the dangerous dames, menacing thugs, snappy dialogue, and hard-living hero.  The film actually seems longer than its running time, and that’s good.  The director and screenwriters pack a lot of twists and turns into this film.  It’s beautifully shot, and the dialogue is not only snappy (which might take some getting used to for people not familiar with noir or movies from the 1930’s and 40’s), but it’s also quite witty, sharp, and biting.  The film is engaging and almost compels the viewer to keep watching.

They really don’t make movies like this anymore or movie stars like this.  Robert Mitchum is an electric and magnetic presence, so much so that he almost steals the film from his co-stars.  It’s obvious why every female character in the film wants to disrobe for his Jeff Bailey.  In fact, if it weren’t for Kirk Douglas’ own super-powered film presence, his Whit Sterling couldn’t register as a dangerous adversary for Mitchum’s Bailey.

With nearly ever scene revealing another twist or surprise, Out of the Past is an absolute delight and a must-see for fans of the cast and film noir.  It’s only shortcoming is that the script brushes aside too many characters, and while those characters’ motivations aren’t contrived, they’re turned into a kind of short hand or footnote, although if developed only a little more, they’d enhance the story.  In places, the film lacks meat on its bones and lacks the emotional resonance to fully sell the various relationship triangles.  That said, this is still very entertaining film-noir.

8 of 10
A

NOTES:
1991 National Film Preservation Board, USA:  National Film Registry

Updated:  Monday, December 09, 2013

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Review: "King-Size Canary" is a Tex Avery Classic (Remembering Tex Avery)

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 101 (of 2006) by Leroy Douresseaux

King-Size Canary (1947) – animation
Running time:  8 minutes
DIRECTOR:  Tex Avery
WRITER:  Heck Allen (story)
PRODUCER:  Fred Quimby
ANIMATORS:  Ray Abrams, Robert Bentley, and Walter Clinton
COMPOSER:  Scott Bradley

SHORT/ANIMATION/COMEDY

The subject of this movie review is King-Size Canary, a 1947 animated cartoon short film directed by Tex Avery and produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM).  In 1994, animation historian Jerry Beck conducted a poll of animators, film historians, and directors, and King-Size Canary was the voted the 10th greatest cartoon of all time.  Pinto Colvig performed the voice of the “Cat” and Frank Graham the voice of the “Mouse,” but did not receive a screen credit.

King-Size Canary starts with a mangy cat on the verge of starvation.  The feline gives an itty-bitty, scrawny canary some “Jumbo-Gro” fertilizer, which in turns makes the canary grow to monstrously large yellow bird.  Thus, the cat has to engage the colossal canary in a pitched battle to see which will end up the other’s meal.  A vicious bulldog and a wily mouse also join in on a madcap comic adventure of gigantic proportions.

If there is a quintessential Tex Avery cartoon, King-Size Canary makes the short list.  In animated cartoon shorts, Fred “Tex” Avery is the most revered name next to Chuck Jones.  Everything that marked Avery’s cartoons, the quasi-normal realities, the series of sight gags – sometimes each more outlandish than the next, and the other improbably elements are all in ample supply in a cartoon that has less than eight minutes of narrative time.

Avery always wanted to make his cartoons wild and wooly, and he does here.  From a dog whose right eye becomes a searchlight to funny animal behemoths chasing each other across the country, King-Size Canary is a feast of gag comedy.  Much of that material would never make it into today’s cartoons, especially the gag in which the cat pours a bottle of sleeping pills down the dog’s mouth to knock him out.  This is a classic short and a superb example of cartoons for big kids, from a time when cartoon shorts were shown in theatres to entertain adults as much as children.

9 of 10
A+

Friday, May 12, 2006

Updated:  Monday, August 26, 2013

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Review: "Crossfire" is a Timeless Social Film (Remembering Robert Ryan)

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 123 (of 2004) by Leroy Douresseaux

Crossfire (1947)
Running time: 86 minutes (1 hour, 26 minutes)
DIRECTOR: Edward Dmytryk
WRITER: John Paxton (based upon the novel The Brick Foxhole by Richard Brooks)
PRODUCER: Adrian Scott
CINEMATOGRAPHER: J. Roy Hunt (D.o.P.)
EDITOR: Harry Gerstad
COMPOSER: Roy Webb
Academy Award nominee

CRIME/DRAMA/FILM-NOIR

Starring: Robert Young, Robert Mitchum, Robert Ryan, Gloria Grahame, Paul Kelly, Sam Levene, Jacqueline White, Steve Brodie, George Cooper, George Cooper, William Phipps, Tome Keene (as Richard Powers), Lex Barker, and Marlo Dwyer

The subject of this movie review is Crossfire, the 1947 Film-Noir drama and murder mystery from director, Edward Dmytryk. The film earned a best picture Oscar nomination, the first B-movie to receive that honor. Crossfire is based upon Richard Brooks’ 1945, The Brick Foxhole, which dealt with the murder of a homosexual victim. The victim in the film is Jewish.

Edward Dmytryk’s film Crossfire is an excellent crime drama about murder that resulted from unchecked bigotry. The filmed earned five Oscar® nominations including nods for “Best Picture,” and “Best Director.” In the film, police Captain Finlay (Robert Young) is trying to solve the murder of Joseph Samuels (Sam Levene), a man who befriended a group of soldiers at a bar. At first glance, the perpetrator would seem to be the drunk and depressed Cpl. Arthur Mitchell or “Mitch” (George Cooper), as his friends call him. However, Finlay and an Army Sgt. Peter Keeley (Robert Mitchum) believe Samuels was murdered because he was Jewish, so they set about trying to sniff out the anti-Semite who really committed the crime.

The film is very entertaining, and is also a quite-effective mystery. The characters, even the bit players, are excellent, engaging, and intriguing. Robert Ryan earned an Academy Award nomination for his supporting performance as the slyly genial, yet menacing Montgomery. Quite a bit of the credit for this film’s success must be given to the John Paxton’s adaptation of Richard Brooks’ novel. Paxton’s script (which changed the novel’s murder victim from a gay man to a Jewish man) is filled with witty and effective dialogue, most of it brief, yet efficient enough to color and to establish even the smallest character parts.

Dmytryk, a master film craftsman, gives the entire work a finish and polish that makes the film’s defects charming rather than distracting. Crossfire is a movie that has stayed with me, and I often find myself, for a few moments, remembering it.

8 of 10
A

NOTES:
1948 Academy Awards: 5 nominations: “Best Actor in a Supporting Role” (Robert Ryan), “Best Actress in a Supporting Role” (Gloria Grahame), “Best Director” (Edward Dmytryk), “Best Picture” ((RKO Radio), and “Best Writing, Screenplay” (John Paxton)

1949 BAFTA Awards: 1 nomination: “Best Film from any Source” (USA)

1947 Cannes Film Festival: 1 win: “Best Social Film” (Edward Dmytryk)

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