By David in TN
Friday, January 7, 2022 at 9:00:00 P.M. EST
TCM’s Film Noir of the Week Saturday Night-Sunday Morning at Midnight and 10 a.m. ET is Edmund Goulding’s Nightmare Alley (1947) with Tyrone Power, Joan Blondell, Coleen Gray, Mike Mazurki and Helen Walker.
Film Noir Guide: “This fascinatedly [sic] morbid film details the rise and fall of a fast-talking, sociopathic con artist (Power) who works at a traveling carnival.
"The ambitious roustabout and barker romances a kindly mentalist (Blondell) to obtain her secret mind-reading code, after accidentally killing her dipso partner (Ian Keith) by plying him with wood alcohol. After seducing Gray, the young girlfriend of the carnival’s strongman (Mazurki), Power is forced into a shotgun wedding. Shortly thereafter, he and his bride leave the sleazy carnie life to become a successful nightclub mentalist team, using the secret code he weaseled out of Blondell.
"Not content with his newfound fame, Power teams up with Walker, a corrupt 'consulting psychologist,' who feeds him confidential information, which he uses to bilk her trusting patients out of their fortunes.
"The 'spook racket' is highly profitable for Power, but his spiritualist empire is threatened by Gray's basic sense of decency and Walker's greed.
"Matinee idol Power, cast way against type here, gives a strong performance. Blondell is terrific, too, as is Walker as the calculating femme fatale.
"The film's best scenes are early on at the carnival, where the star attraction is the 'geek,' a pathetic rum-dum who bites off the head of chickens for a bottle of booze and a place to sleep. Nearly forgotten and rarely seen, Nightmare Alley, despite its cop-out ending, is a memorable experience."
David in TN: Eddie Muller loves it, but I was unimpressed. The film has just been remade.
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2 comments:
Sounds imaginatively bizarre.But...I haven't had the extra cable channels since 2020.
--GRA
TCM's Film Noir of the Week Saturday Night-Sunday Morning at 12:30 and 10 am is Robert Parrish's The Mob (1951) with Broderick Crawford, Betty Buehler, Richard Kiley, Neville Brand, and Ernest Borgnine.
Film Noir Guide: "Tough cop Crawford happens on the scene when a witness against the mob is shot to death on a dark street. After the killer fools him by flashing a badge, Crawford allows him to get away. To make matters worse, it was too dark to get a good look at the man's face. His unhappy superiors send him undercover to flush out the killer, whom they suspect is the unknown boss of the mob's waterfront activities. Posing as a longshoreman, Crawford tries unsuccessfully to ingratiate himself with low-level hoods Borgnine and Brand, and befriends a mysterious co-worker (Kiley, in his film debut). Buehler plays Crawford's fiancee, who becomes a pawn in the undercover game. This brutal noir is populated by seedy characters--hoods and cops alike--and, as in many film noirs, it's difficult to distinguish the good guys from the bad guys. Crawford is excellent as the unlucky cop attempting to atone for the biggest screwup of his career. You'll see a lot of familiar noir faces here, including Emile Meyer, Jay Adler, Harry Lauter, and Robert Foulk, in small roles."
David In TN: Eddie Muller finally chooses to show a good one.
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