Nightmare Alley (1947)
Director: Edmund Goulding
Movie review
From Time Out Film Guide
Though perhaps it tries too hard to be 'respectable' and downplays its tawdry trash vulgarity a little too much (the film is tough, but William Lindsay Gresham's superb novel is even tougher), this is still a mean, moody, and well-nigh magnificent melodrama. Power excels as the hick fairground huckster who rises to society celebrity as a fake spiritualist, only to have fickle fortune arc him back to the midway as the boozed-up, live-chicken-eating geek. Blondell, Gray and the strange Helen Walker are the women he uses/abuses to grease his path. Lee Garmes' camerawork, Jules Furthman's script, and Goulding's direction make this one of the most oddball and enduring of the decade's Hollywood highspots.Author: CW
Cast & crew
Director: Edmund Goulding
Producer: George Jessel
Cast: Tyrone Power, Joan Blondell, Colleen Gray, Helen Walker, Mike Mazurki, Taylor Holmes, Ian Keith, James Flavin full cast
Genre(s): Film Noir
Duration: 111 mins
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