Book Review: Nightmare Alley by William Lindsay Gresham

Nightmare Alley by William Lindsay Gresham

Low-level carnival worker Stan Carlisle does magic tricks and such but he has much higher ambitions. He's smart and wants to go to the big time. The fortune teller/psychic at the carnival, Zeena, has a lush of a husband named Pete who used to do a highly polished mentalist act with her. The pressure got to him. He turned to the bottle and is an alcoholic. Now he works behind the scenes, feeding Zeena bits of info from the crowd so she can show off her "psychic" powers. Stan is interested in the mentalist routine but can't quite turn Zeena on to it. He gets the code book from Zeena and the favor of Molly, a sweet girl working the electric chair exhibit in the carnival. Molly and Stan go off on their own to bilk bigger targets using the mentalist scam. Stan keeps talking about the one great mark who, when he pays off, will let them retire. They never seem to get that far, even though Stan opens up a fake church of spiritualism where he convinces people he can talk to the dead. He finds a female psychologist who might be able to hook him up with the great mark. But can he be trusted? Can she be trusted?

The novel came out in the 1940s and was made into a feature film with Tyrone Power in the lead role. The story follows very much the noir tradition. Stan is the sympathetic anti-hero. He's come out of hard circumstances with the result that he himself has become hard. Most everyone else, for him, is a "mark" or "chump," not a real person. Stan tries to work every angle. He is very smart. Even so, he can't see every angle and he lives in constant worry that things will turn against him. The novel is much darker than the movie (which is saying something) but follows the same general arc. Each chapter is headed with a Tarot card that is thematically relates to what happens in that part of the book. The novel is well crafted and keeps the reader engaged. It is not the happiest of trips.

Slightly recommended--this is pretty dark for noir literature but, like a traffic accident, it's hard to look away.

Movie Review: Nightmare Alley (1947)

Nightmare Alley (1947) directed by Edmund Goulding

Tyrone Power is Stanton Carlisle, a two-bit worker in a carnival. He's an aid to Zeena (Joan Blondel), the carnival's psychic. Zeena needs help because her husband is an alcoholic and long past his prime, when they were a nightclub mentalist act together. Zeena predicts Stan's future using a Tarot deck and sees that he will hit the big time soon. She's excited by that because the cards always work (she predicted her husband's collapse) and she's having an affair with Stan. Stan has ambitions and cons Zeena into teaching him the code for the mentalist routine. He uses the young and pretty Molly (Coleen Grey) to help him learn the routine. He then dumps the carnival and Zeena when he's forced to marry Molly because they seemed to have a tryst together. The carnies may bilk the local rubes, but they have their own moral code among themselves and are strict enforcers.

Carlisle reimagines himself as "The Great Stanton," and perfects his mentalist act with Molly, occasionally showing actual psychic ability. He doesn't believe in supernatural stuff, either the Tarot or God or psychic abilities, but knows enough about them to use them in his cons. During a Chicago nightclub act, he runs across psychologist Lilith Ritter (Helen Walker) who wants to debunk him but decides to help him con the Chicago socialites. She's a doctor to the old, rich crowd and has extensive records of their past from treating them. That's just the sort of info Stan needs to really rake in the dough. He starts passing himself off as a spiritualist who can communicate with the dead. The rich offer to build him a temple, which of course means giving him a lot of cash. He works the con too hard and things eventually fall apart.

The movie is a fascinating look at the rise and fall of Power's character. He's a con man, but isn't malicious or vindictive. He's in it for himself, giving him enough corruption to have a tragic arc. He uses other people but doesn't abuse them (he didn't actually have sex with Molly; they just spent a lot of unacccounted-for night hours together before the carnies forced them into marriage). He's no hero. He also isn't the embodiment of evil. Stan is a well-written and well-acted character. The other characters are also interesting and given great moments to shine, especially the innocent and loving wife Molly and the conniving and corrupt psychologist Lilith.

The film is also a hard-core noir. Stan is stuck to a fate much like Zeena's husband, who viewers initially see as a drunken nobody, but enough of his past is revealed to make a parallel to Stan clear. The Tarot deck comes back a few times to give Stan warnings that he ignores. His wife objects to Stan using God as part of his biggest con--they discuss the situation a lot and divine retribution does comes swift and hard for Stan. The film has a lot of dark shadows and wounded souls. Little moments of redemption keep it from being too dark.

Recommended, though the story is bleak, even by noir standards.