Nightmare Alley

"He was all things to all men … but only one thing to all women!"

Oct 28 1947 Approved 1h 50m
Drama, Film-Noir

Roustabout Stanton Carlisle joins a traveling carny and unsuccessfully schemes to figure out the mind-reading act of Mademoiselle Zeena and her alcoholic husband, Pete.

Plot

The ambitious Stanton "Stan" Carlisle (Tyrone Power) works in a sideshow as carny and assistant of the mentalist Zeena Krumbein (Joan Blondell), who is married with the alcoholic Pete (Ian Keith). The couple had developed a secret code to pretend to read minds and was successful in the show business before Pete starts drinking. Stan stays with them expecting to learn their code and leave the carnival to be a successful mentalist. Stan also flirts with the gorgeous Molly (Coleen Gray) that lives in the carnival with the strong Bruno (Mike Mazurki). Zeena and The Geek, an alcoholic man that bites the head off a live chicken that the audiences believe that is a savage, are the greatest attractions of the sideshow.

Written by

Jules Furthman, William Lindsay Gresham

Directed by

Edmund Goulding

Production Countries

United States of America

Production Companies

20th Century Fox

Languages

English

Awards

N/A

Scores
# of Votes
13,883
Average Rating
7.7 out of 10
Metascore
75
Popularity
NA