NIGHTMARE ALLEY

US, 2021, 150 minutes, Colour.

Bradley Cooper, Cate Blanchette, Tony Collette, Willem Dafoe, Richard Jenkins, Rooney Mara, Ron Perlman, Mary Steenburgen, David Strathairn, Mark Povinellli, Peter MacNeil, Holt McCallany, Clifton Collins Jr, Tim Blake Nelson.

Directed by Guillermo del Toro.

This film was based on a 1932 novel by William Lindsay Gresham,. It was made into a striking film noir in 1947, with the same name, and with the same names of the characters, the ending is softened somewhat because of audience entertainment expectations in the postwar period. However, it was not a box-office success. Now Mexican director, Oscar-winning for The Shape of Water (but whose films range from the war fantasy, Pan’s Labyrinth, two Hellboy films), Guillermo del Toro. He brings his distinctive vision, his eye for the fantasy and the unusual, the darkness, for magic and the mysterious.

The film runs for 2 ½ hours, the first hour focusing on life in a carnival. The central character, Stanton Carlisle (the distinctive performance from Bradley Cooper) is seen burying a body in an old house and setting the house alight – explanations emerging later during the film. He catches a bus, arrives at a destination, discovers the carnival, persuades the manager (Willem Dafoe) to give him a job, any job. And, we are introduced to the life of the carnival, the unusual characters who frequent those old carnivals often labelled as “freaks”. Most distressing of all is The Geek, the owner hiring down and out vagrants, drugging them, keeping them in a cage, urging them to bite chickens’ necks to survive – and the amazed crowd gazing and gawping on. There are mind readers. There is a young woman who has electric powers. There is the traditional strongman and his dwarf, The Major.

The cast is quite extraordinary, Tony Collette and David Strathairn as the mentalists, Rooney Mara as the electric girl, Ron Perlman as Bruno, the strongman. Stan fits into this milieu, learning from the mentalists and becoming skilful himself, in love with Molly, the electric girl, planning to run away with her – and, at a crisis moment when a sheriff wants to move them on, exercising the mentalist skills shrewdly, gaining sympathy as the sheriff understands his own life, their being allowed to stay.

The latter, longer part of the film takes place two years later. The action has moved from the darkness and the nightmare alleys of the carnival to New York City, a fashionable hotel and clientele, comfortable apartments, connections with rich families of the city, and a connection with a psychiatrist. Once again, interesting casting with Cate Blanchett as the psychiatrist, Richard Jenkins as a millionaire, Mary Steenburgen as a grieving mother.

While Stan has success with his mentalist show at the hotel, assisted by Molly who has to keep revising the tricks of the trade to help Stan, the psychiatrist comes to the show, a femme fatale in her style, challenging Stan. But, this leads to something of a deal with the devil, the psychiatrist offering him information about her clients so that he can insinuate himself into their lives, but her asking for psychoanalytic sessions so that she can understand him and he reveals his own inner secrets and are more.

At first, success, Stan becoming connected with millionaires, paid exceedingly well, and the psychiatrist holding the cash in her office safe. But, deals with the Devil bring their own hellish consequences – and, we trace the downfall of Stan, Molly wanting to leave him but persuaded to participate in one final confidence trick, confrontation with the millionaire, betrayal by the psychiatrist.

So, ultimately, Stan escapes, goes on the run, visits vagrant camps, eventually arrives at the carnival, under new management, but still with the act of The Geek. Stan is back where he started, only worse, a decline and the deepest fall.  Which means that Nightmare Alley is interesting, dismaying, and a strong moral fable.

1. The title? Applications? Nightmare situations – footage of the characters? The dark locations and alleys?
2. The work of the director, his exploration of fantasy, imaginations, the sinister?
3. The early 1940s, the background of World War II, American intervention, the role of Roosevelt? Costumes and decor? The vagrants and their lifestyle? The carnivals, the range of characters, the “freakish” characters and behaviour, being exploited? Work at the carnivals? The transition to more affluent society, hotels and performances? The wealthy in New York? Mansions? Psychology and settings? A film noir world?
4. The structure of the story, the first hour, Stan’s story, and life in the carnival? Details of the life of those who work there, of the people involved in the acts? The transition then to 2 years later, affluent New York, dealings with the rich? And the comeuppance, Stan and his downfall?
5. Bradley Cooper as Stanton Carlisle? Audience response to the opening, the dead body, the whole, burying, setting it alight, the house burning, his taking the bus, moving away? And his dreams, memories, his father, and the final memory of his confronting his father, his father dying of cold, taking his watch?
6. Stan arriving at his destination, discovering the carnival, the encounter with Clem, Clem and his goading the Geek, biting the chicken, the reaction of the viewers? Stan being offered a job, the hard work, the accommodation, the carnival on the move, settling in the town?
7. The film is detailed portraits of those who worked in the carnival, Clem, friendly yet ruthless, Zeena and Pete, their mind reading act, Peter and his alcoholic decline, Molly, the electricity act, Bruno as her protector, the strong man, the Major, his height, dominance, performance? The Geeks, Clem story, their being down and out, drugging them, a temporary job, replacing them? The atmosphere of the carnival, the crowds, the spooking? Molly and her electricity act? Zeena, the techniques for the questions, the substitute questions, Pete and his formulating the responses, Molly having to step in, Stan and his encouraging the audience?
8. Zeena and Pete, the act, their backgrounds, Pete and his explanations, his past experiences, some dissolution, his book, the numbers and clues, Zeena knowing them, able to respond to the questions, the example of the woman in the crowd identified herself as the question of? Stan, learning from Pete, learning the techniques, putting it into practice? Pete, the alcohol, Stan bringing it, his death?
9. Stan and Molly, Bruno’s protection and jealousy, Stan suggesting the electric chair for the development of the act? Asking Molly to leave with him?
10. The arrival of the local sheriff, his contempt of the carnival, Stan taking over, using the mind reading techniques, the revelations to the sheriff, his change of heart, their protection? Stan taking the opportunity to take Molly away?
11. The transition of two years, setting up in New York, their act in the hotel, Stan and his reputation, clothes, stash, suave? Molly, helping, but not always remembering the questions and techniques, her continually revising? The evening with Lilith in the audience, her taking over, asking the questions? Stan able to read her, even to the pistol in her handbag? Her returning the next night? And the wealthy guest, his questions about his dead son in the war? His wife?
12. The rich man giving his card, Stan going to visit Lilith, the European decor of her office, their discussions, she is the femme fatale, the psychologist, having the information about the rich man and his story, deciding to give it, the money, to be held in her safe in the office? The deal, her psychoanalysis, her reading him well, his revelation of his background, his mother, father, hatred for his father?
13. Stan using the information, the discussions with the wealthy man, the interview with his wife, his reassuring the wife about the son and his death? Her being reassured? The later scene, with her husband, the advice that they would be with their son, her shooting him and herself?
14. The encounter with Ezra Grindle, a patient of Lilith, his wealth, mansion, his bodyguard continually with him, going to see Stan, the conditions, his grief at the girl who is pregnant, her death? The later revelation of his violence predatory behaviour? Wanting some kind of absolution? His bodyguard being sceptical, confronting Stan, ever present?
15. Molly, the visit from Zeena, Bruno and the Major? Her phone calls to them? Feeling put down by Stan? Suspicious of Lilith? Her leaving, the note, Stan pursuing her to the bus station, his being ready for the final revelation to Ezra Grindle, persuading her to come back, the story about the electricity experience, dressing as Ezra Grindle’s girl, clothes, the blood?
16. Grindle, impatience, used to getting his own way? The bodyguard sent away? Grindle, the demands, the cemetery, Molly’s appearance, Grindle rushing to her, the realisation that he had been swindled? The gun, the shooting? Stan and Molly escaping in the car, knocking over the bodyguard, running over him?
17. The pursuit, Stan being chased, through the city, the railyards, getting on the carriage, the chicken cages covering him?
18. Travelling, a vagrant once again, giving his watch?
19. The return to the carnival, the new owner, the different acts, not wanting mentalism? Stan desperate, the drink, the drugs, and his becoming the geek? An absolute fall?