Guillermo del Toro like Edmund Goulding in 1947 has adapted William Lindsay Gresham’s cynical crime novel Nightmare Alley to the silver screen. Del Toro and Kim Morgan’s screenplay follow the same core beats and arc as the 1947 film and the novel.

Stanton Carlisle (Bradley Cooper) drifts into work for Clem’s (Willem Dafoe) low-end carnival. There he learns the basic of the carny trade, how to fake mind-reading while getting a taste for
the grift. After acquiring the skills and confidence to aim higher than carny life, together with the innocent Molly (Rooney Mara) Stan leaves for bigger, brighter gigs as a nightclub act. There a chance encounter brings him to psychologist Lilith Ritter (Cate Blanchett) and the possibility of even greater cons and even greater dangers as Stan reaches beyond his grasp.

While following the same core acts, events, and arc of the 47 film Del Toro’s is 39 minutes longer, lingering with the world of the traveling carnival and amid the misfits that del Toro so clearly loves. If you are a fan of the Tyrone Power adaptation nothing in this one is going to come as a major surprise with the most explicit differences arising from the original film’s Production Code limitations. Molly remains virtuous, Stan remains too ambitious for his own good, while Dr. Ritter is even more icy and more calculating than before. That said del Toro has returned to the source material for the story’s final resolution which the 47 adaptation avoided leaving the audience with a colder, darker, and more cynical thematic tone.

The cinematography is this production is dark, moody, and while there is a wide color palate the colors are far from saturated giving the film’s environments a used and shabby atmosphere. Costuming is subtle and on point capturing each character without drawing over attention. the acting is mostly restrained and naturalistic save for the moments of highest emotional strain and in a small role Mary Steenburgen frightens with a smile.

It would be wrong to compare the 47 and the 2021 productions. They were made under very different restrictions and with very different intentions. I think it is possibly to embrace and love both films as they are without preferencing one over the other. Again, the most meaningful difference lay in the film’s final resolution and the very different lives ahead for Stan in each version. I am thoroughly happy that I braved the cool wet weather and three hours in a fabric mask to witness this beautiful, haunting, and frightening film.

Despite the cresting, crashing, calamity that is the Omicron wave I still plan to go out the theater this holiday weekend and treat my vaccinated and boosted self to a couple of in the goddamned cinema films.

First up and possibly on Christmas eve will be Del Toro’s adaptation of a 1946 novel, Nightmare Alley. Previously adapted for the screen in 1947 this is a film noir about ruthless manipulation of people for money by low carny folk and upper-class cons hiding behind prestigious degrees. I have seen the 47 movie and thoroughly enjoyed it but very much want to see Del Toro’s interpretation. It came out last weekend but between Role Play Gaming nights and seeing Spider-Man: No Way Home this was pushed off for one week.

Opening Christmas Day is another long-anticipated film for me, Joel Cohen’s adaptation of The Tragedy of Macbeth. Long my favorite of the Bard’s plays Macbeth is open to and has been widely interpreted and re-interpreted. Macbeth can be analyzed through a psychological lens with spectral daggers and unwanted ghostly dinner guests seen as manifestations of greed, ambition, and guilt. It can also be seen as a supernatural story where the witches have actual power and slain friends literally haunt their murderer. It has been reported that Cohen’s vision in his first film without his brother Ethan at his side leans heavily into the supernatural. Luckily San Diego still has some art house theaters, and I will be able to see this on the big screen rather than waiting until next month’s debut on Apple TV+.

The 1958 film Elevator to the Gallows is often considered one of the foundational films of the French New Wave of cinema and is also a dark cynical noir with an underlying theme of futility.

Julien Tavernier, an ex-paratrooper and now an executive under a corrupt businessman, Simon Carala, plots with his lover Florence to murder his boss. The film opens with the murder and reveals Julien’s careful planning, but an ill-timed telephone call disrupts the plot initiating a chain-reaction of events that over the course of a single night cascades into more murder and tragedy.

Adapted from a novel of the same name Elevator to the Gallows is a film with very little fat on it. Within its slim 91-minute running time Gallows presents fully realized characters and explores the futility of attempting to fully controls events. Julien’s plan it meticulous and intelligent but with one stray event is crumbles as chaos revealing chaos as the ultimate determiner of our fates.

Many low-budget noirs utilized inexpensive jazz scores, but Gallows stands apart from these with its improvised jazz score by legendary musical Miles Davis. Filmed on location and at night the movie has a realism that adds weight and poignancy to the doomed lovers. The cinematography often relies on short lenses, isolating the characters from their out of focus backgrounds, visually reflecting their lonely existence.

Elevator to the Gallows is currently streaming, with bonus content, on the Criterion Channel.

Sunday night’s movie this week was another classic noir Night and The City, starring, Richard Widmark, and Gene Tierney with a standout support-role performance by Herbert Lom.

An ambitious but two-bit street con man, Harry Fabian (Widmark) dreams of making a name for himself, of becoming someone respected and admired but his life is one of running from debtors and hustling tourists for unscrupulous nightclubs that drain wallets with watered-down drinks and women hired to keep them drinking. Harry’s girlfriend Mary (Tierney) is dubious of Harry’s constantly failing get-rich-quick schemes but remains hopelessly in love with him. A chance encounter while hustling for nightclub clients leads harry to believe that he can launch an enterprise to control wrestling entertainment in all of London while neutralizing Kristo (Lom) the organized crime figure currently behind the exhibitions. when things inevitably begin to go wrong Harry’s skills at fast-talk and quick thinking are the only factors between his success and Kristo’s vengeance.

With its lack of sympathetic or moral characters, save for the ineffectual Mary, Night and The City is a perfect example of the dark, cynical tones found in true film noir. While not as depraved as Double Indemnity’s Walter Neff, Harry is a morally compromised character not unlike Squid Game’sprotagonist Gi-hun who steals from his own mother to fuel his gambling addiction. Unlike Gi-hun Harry has no redemptive arc but instead as he struggles against fate and fortune sinks ever deeper into his own immoral quicksand.

I’ve seen Richard Widmark give stellar performances and I’ve seen him ‘phone them in’ when he has no respect for the material he is in, here he is at his best form, always charming, always fully committed to the character, managing to invoke empathy for a character that in actual life it would be best to avoid. That said the standout performance to me was Herbert Lom as the respectable gangster Kristo. My principle cinematic experience with Lom has been his work with Blake Edwards in various comedies where Lom player broad exaggerated characters seeing this early turn as a nearly sociopathic heavy is quite a revelation. Kristo is a cold and precise character with only room in his heart for his beloved father and when he turns to revenge there can be no doubt that with Kristo is will be achieved.

Night and The City, while not well received upon its release has claimed its well-deserved place among the best of noirs from the classic period. The film is currently streaming on the Criterion Channel as part of their Fox Noir collection.

Please consider purchasing My SF/Noir Vulcan’s Forge which is available from Amazon and all booksellers. The novel is dark, cynical, and packed with movie references,

Before I get into my thoughts on this classic noir just a note that as this is the busy season for my day-job with loads of overtime my posting here will be sparser and erratic and after the new year.

Nightmare Alley, adapted from the novel of the same name by William Lindsay Gresham, is the relatively rare noir that boasts a cast of top studio leads, A-picture budgeting, and promotion, unlike most noirs that were either studio B-pictures, that is they played the second half of a double bills, or produced independently of the major studios. Tyrone Power, looking to expand his roles beyond dashing heroic types, plays Stan Carlisle, an amoral carnival worker willing to use and discard people in his quest for money and fame. From lowly beginnings in a second-rate travelling carnival, complete with an off-screen geek biting the heads of chickens, Stanton cons, charms, and connives his way to the top of the nightclub circuit as a ‘mentalist’ but like Icarus the higher he flies his danger grows.

Nightmare Alley is a dark and cynical film even for the genre of film noir. While there are ‘good’ characters in the story their effects are limited, and Stanton uses them as ruthlessly as anyone else he encounters. It is perhaps a fault of the film that a few early scenes telegraph the films ending a little too precisely or perhaps that is simply the danger of a writer watching the filmmakers palm the card because we know the tricks played on the rubes. Either way Nightmare Alley, with is impressive cast and excellent production values combined with a thematically compelling story about the cost of an ambition is a classic noir worth watching.

In December of 2021, next month as I write this, Guillermo del Torro, reportedly inspired by the novel and not the classic film, will release his adaptation for theatrical distribution starring Bradley Cooper as Stan Carlisle.

Nightmare Alley (1947) is currently streaming on the Criterion Channel.

My SF/Noir Vulcan’s Forge is available from Amazon and all booksellers. The novel is dark, cynical, and packed with movie references,