Nightmare Alley (1947)

Coleen Gray and Tyrone Power in Nightmare AlleyNightmare Alley (1947) differs from the majority of film noirs. First, while most film noirs were either low budget B-movies produced by the major studies or independent, low budget B-movies, Nightmare Alley (1947) was an A-picture with a much bigger budget produced by a major studio, namely 20th Century Fox. Second, Nightmare Alley (1947) is far darker than the average film noir. It is a vision of dysfunction and despair that is intense even by today's standards.Nightmare Alley (1947) was based on the best selling, 1946 novel of the same name by William Lindsay Gresham. Like the novel, Nightmare Alley (1947) centred on Stanton "Stan" Carlisle (Tyrone Power), a shady barker with a travelling carnival. He works with mentalist Zeena Krumbein (Joan Blondell) and her alcoholic ex-husband Pete (Ian Keith). Once a big time act on vaudeville, in the past Zeena and Pete had operated using a code that would effectively allow Zeena to give the…

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