Nightmare alley

Resource Information

The work Nightmare alley represents a distinct intellectual or artistic creation found in Evanston Public Library. This resource is a combination of several types including: Work, Moving Image, Visual Materials.

The Resource Nightmare alley

Statement of responsibility: Twentieth Century Fox presents ; directed by Edmund Goulding ; screen play by Jules Furthman ; produced by George Jessel

Language

Summary: "Darkness lurks behind the bright lights of a traveling carnival in one of the most haunting and perverse film noirs of the 1940s. Adapted from the scandalous best seller by William Lindsay Gresham, Nightmare Alley gave Tyrone Power a chance to subvert his matinee-idol image with a ruthless performance as Stanton Carlisle, a small-time carny whose unctuous charm propels him to fame as a charlatan spiritualist, but whose unchecked ambition leads him down a path of moral degradation and self-destruction. Although its strange, sordid atmosphere shocked contemporary audiences, this long-difficult-to-see reflection of postwar angst has now taken its place as one of the defining noirs of its era--a fatalistic downward slide into existential oblivion"--Container

Credits note: Music, Cyril Mockridge ; director of photography, Lee Garmes ; editor, Barbara McLean

Language note: In English; English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing (SDH)

PerformerNote: Tyrone Power, Joan Blondell, Coleen Gray, Helen Walker, Taylor Holmes, Mike Mazurki, Ian Keith

Context

Context of Nightmare alley