After watching this year’s Oscars I've been somewhat hearing a lot of praise for Guillermo del Toro's latest film Nightmare Alley staring Bradley Cooper, unfortunately I was a little weary at first when I heard he was coming out with a new movie because mainly I haven't trusted del Toro ever since he came out with the movie about a woman falling in love with a fish man. Although, as luck would have it, his film was a remake to a 1947 classic of the same name and story, moreover as luck was on my side, I just happen to find the original on YouTube, because let’s face it YouTube is a great way to find some hidden gems from the past. So as always with nothing to do all day I decided to take the time and watch this amazing well-crafted Film Noir. Staring Tyrone Power whose most famous for The Mark of Zorro, after serving his time in WWII read the book Nightmare Alley and convinced 20th Century Fox to buy the rights to the book for which came to be one of his best works. Now, I myself never have seen any of Power's work but I can tell that this was his best movie.
Roustabout Stanton Carlisle (Tyrone Power) joins a traveling carny and unsuccessfully schemes to figure out the mind-reading act of Mademoiselle Zeena (Joan Blondell) and her alcoholic husband, Pete (Ian Keith). But when Pete dies, Zeena is forced to take on Stanton as a partner, and he quickly proves more gifted than his predecessor. Ambitious to a fault, Carlisle abandons Zeena and the carney to reinvent himself as "The Great Stanton" wowing high class audiences in a Chicago hotel.
In all Film Noir's, they always portray the protagonist as someone with a tragic backstory or a sin they're trying to escape from or another way of putting it an anti-hero, someone who’s not a perfect hero. What makes Nightmare Alley so amazing is that it has all those elements, but shows a man being so desperate to get to the very top of success and then falling so low to the lowest pit in his life that he fears he may not come out of. And that's what Nightmare Alley provides is a con man who dubbing gullible folks out of their hard earn money by simply telling them what they want to hear. This was my first experience of Tyrone Power as an actor and the guy at first was always remembered for as a ladies man and swashbuckler but with this movie after its release, everyone didn't want to accept him as this ruthless con man who takes advantage of people which I don't understand why because I thought he did and a tremendous job playing a ruthless con man whose so obsessed with getting to the top of his game but just when it couldn't be enough becomes his worst enemy, and also they guy served in the Marine Corp furthermore wanted a change in his persona as actor that can change, for which you really can't fault him on that. Even the supporting cast of actresses do a fantastic job as well both are beautiful and visually stunning but also stands up to the star of the film, Joan Blondell whom I just now have been reminded by a MST3K joke, does a great job playing a master of manipulation for Power's character but begins to for warn him about the consequences that would lead to his downfall. Coleen Gray does a great job as well playing the love of Carlisle's life but also trying to be the conscious to Carlisle's ego, though the actress I'm more impressed in this movie was Helen Walker who plays a therapist to Power's character who sees right through him but is also an adversary to his character as well. Now, granted all the leading actresses in the movie were amazing to watch but I thought the one supporting cast member who did a great job as well was Ian Keith as Pete who is really the whole future to what Carlisle will soon turn into and the whole scene between them is really the setting up scenario of what Carlisle would turn into, and I thought Keith did a great job at that. I will keep saying this multiple times YouTube is a great way to find some old classic films that free to watch especially when it comes to movies, TV shows and even sporting events and documentaries. Hell I even found the first Basketball game between Magic Johnson and Larry Bird all because I watched the latest episode of Winning Time, but again I will keep telling all of you to use YouTube a lot because it’s a great way to find some hidden gems of classic movie moreover I will also highly recommend Nightmare Alley, this is one of the many film noir's that is up there with some of the best like The Third Man, Laura, Don't Bother to Knock and of course The Maltese Falcon.
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