Hold the chicken: Thoughts on the geeky original 'Nightmare Alley'
The Tyrone Power 1947 noir is tough to top
HARK!
I hear…the harrowing screams of...The Geek…
I was probably called a “geek” in high school. And I probably said someone else was the same, or “geeky.”
After seeing “Nightmare Alley,” the 1947 original that has a new remake starring Bradley Cooper, I shamefully regret those school taunts.
Carnival geeks, as the film noir hints at (without, thankfully, showing), were the lowest of the performers; in addition to howling and acting depraved, they got the crowd going by chasing live chickens and…Well, let’s just say the “entertainment” was hardly something animal rights activists would enjoy.
The role of the geek seems off-handed, at first, but slowly echoes in “Nightmare Alley," becoming a stirring, symbolic major chord.
Tyrone Power, best known as the swashbuckling Zorro and other action-romance leads, gives a great, layered performance here, first showing a young hustler eager to please, slowly peeling off layers to reveal a dark, master manipulator.
Courtesy of Getty Images
You can catch the original “Nightmare Alley” on the Criterion Channel, which has scores of great old American flicks as well as the best of France, Japan, Australia, etc.
Catch a free, two-week trial for yourself or give the Criterion Channel as a gift to a movie lover here
The first half of “Nightmare Alley” is beautifully grim, with intense realism from Edmund Goulding, who had just directed Power in “Razor’s Edge.”
Power is backed up by a trio of strong actresses (Joan Blondell, Coleen Gray and Helen Walker) as he makes his journey from carny tag-along to nightclub star, going from tough-guy T-shirts to swank tuxedos.
Getty Images
Along the way, he becomes one of the movies’ great hucksters, just shy of Burt Lancaster’s epic scammer Elmer Gantry.
In the new movie directed by Guillermo del Toro, Cooper—backed by Rooney Mara, Cate Blanchett and Toni Collette— is going to have to muscle up to dig into the depths of the dark Stanton Carlisle, haunted by a death he may or may not have caused, which greased his fast-tracking wheels.
No spoilers here, other than a reminder that film noirs generally don’t let bad deeds go unpunished…
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Speaking of geeks and freaks, the FilmBar favorite Unfathomable Film Freakout—a mashup of public domain movies, TV shows, videos, etc., with “Rocky Horror”-like audience participation—holiday show scheduled for Saturday, Dec. 18 was canceled.
Also scratched was the very-downtown venue’s bust-up-the-traditions spirit, a screening of “The Texas Chain Saw Massacre” followed by a live podcast featuring filmmaker Jill Gevargizian (creator of the indie horror flick “The Stylist”) planned for Sunday, Dec. 19.
According to a FilmBar newsletter sent out Friday: “we ran into a pretty serious plumbing (toilet) issue that will put us out of commission for a while.”
The FilmBar plans to be dark for the rest of 2021: “It's been a pretty rough year and we need a break!”
Amen.