- "How can a guy sink so low?" It's one of the quintessential film noir questions and the explicit theme of Edmund Goulding's excellent Nightmare Alley. The reason this particular question sticks in the mind of carnival worker Stan Carlisle (Tyrone Power) has to do with a now-obscure circus act known as the "geek show." Although the term "geek" has unfortunately been reappropriated by popular culture, this film and William Lindsay Gresham's source novel make it clear that "geek" once described one of the most pitiable forms of human endeavor. There's no delicate way to put this, so I'll just come out and say it: the carnival geek was a man who ate the heads off of live chickens.
- As the film opens, Stan's interest in the geek amounts to little more than an idle curiosity. Like everyone else, he's heard the poor creature howling at night, but Stan has enough to worry about helping Mademoiselle Zeena (Joan Blondell) and her husband Pete (Ian Keith) execute their well-worn mental act. As it happens, Zeena and Pete used to be world-famous, but Pete's boozing has reduced them to the traveling carnival circuit. As Stan learns more about the secret code technique that made them famous, we can almost hear the wheels spinning in his mind. One night, he and Pete drain a few bottles in a dimly-lit backlot. The next day, Stan wakes up with a hangover. Pete never wakes up again.
- Now the audience knows that Stan didn't mean to hand Pete that bottle of wood alcohol, but Pete's death sure opens up some doors for Stan, career-wise. Zeena has no choice but to share her secret mentalist code with Stan, and it looks like the two are well along the path to success. Or they would be, except for the fact that Stan's eyes have migrated over to an innocent young showgirl named Molly (Coleen Gray). Theirs is a quick wedding in which the traditional shotgun is replaced by the intimidating musculature of Molly's guardian (Mike Mazurki). Before long, Stan is performing the mentalist show in crowded Chicago nightclubs, but now with Molly feeding him answers instead of Zeena. By the time a crooked psychiatrist named Lilith (Helen Walker) stumbles into the act, we begin to perceive the pattern that connects Stan's romantic and business interests.
- But looming behind the shiny facade of Stan's career is the threat of utter ruination. It would seem that this huckster reached a little too high trying to con a skeptic (Taylor Holmes) out of his fortune, and now he finds himself sinking lower by the minute. It's a terrifying and tragic trajectory that the audience rightly suspects will lead to the screaming insanity of a geek show. Just as Nightmare Alley's glittering carnival grounds transform into a labyrinth of shadowy tents and dead end streets after dark, so too does Stan's life rapidly deteriorate into an unrecognizable monstrosity. Molly swoops in at the end to provide just a glimmer of hope, but it's easy to imagine that Stan will soon take up Pete's old mantle, drunkenly reminiscing about how "throughout the ages, man has sought to look behind the veil that hides him from tomorrow." When life gives you a glimpse through that veil, as it does in Nightmare Alley, you might not like what you see.
- As mentioned, based on the novel.
