Nightmare Alley
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.
Special Features
- New 4K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray
- Audio commentary from 2005 featuring film historians James Ursini and Alain Silver
- New interview with critic Imogen Sara Smith
- New interview with performer and historian Todd Robbins
- Interview from 2007 with actor Coleen Gray
- Audio excerpt from a 1971 interview with Henry King in which the filmmaker discusses actor Tyrone Power
- Trailer
- English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
- PLUS: An essay by film writer and screenwriter Kim Morgan
New cover by Ricardo Diseño
Special Features
- New 4K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray
- Audio commentary from 2005 featuring film historians James Ursini and Alain Silver
- New interview with critic Imogen Sara Smith
- New interview with performer and historian Todd Robbins
- Interview from 2007 with actor Coleen Gray
- Audio excerpt from a 1971 interview with Henry King in which the filmmaker discusses actor Tyrone Power
- Trailer
- English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
- PLUS: An essay by film writer and screenwriter Kim Morgan
New cover by Ricardo Diseño
Cast
- Tyrone Power
- Stanton Carlisle
- Joan Blondell
- Zeena Krumbein
- Coleen Gray
- Molly
- Helen Walker
- Lilith Ritter
- Taylor Holmes
- Ezra Grindle
- Mike Mazurki
- Bruno
- Ian Keith
- Pete Krumbein
Credits
- Director
- Edmund Goulding
- Producer
- George Jessel
- Screenplay by
- Jules Furthman
- Based on the novel by
- William Lindsay Gresham
- Director of photography
- Lee Garmes
- Art direction
- J. Russell Spencer
- Lyle Wheeler
- Set decoration
- Thomas Little
- Editor
- Barbara McLean
- Music
- Cyril J. Mockridge
A scene from Nightmare Alley
