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Nightmare Alley | 1947
Film noir starring Tyrone Power and Joan Blondell, and directed by Edmund Goulding. The film is based on the 1946 novel of the same title, written by William Lindsay Gresham, about the rise and fall of Stanton Carlisle, a mentalist whose lies and deceit prove to be his downfall.

Director: Edmund Goulding
Writers: Jules Furthman (screen play), William Lindsay Gresham (novel)
Stars: Tyrone Power, Joan Blondell, Coleen Gray

The producers built a full working carnival on ten acres (40000m2) of the 20th Century Fox lot to make the film more believable. They also hired over 100 sideshow attractions and carnival people to add further authenticity.

The film was not a financial success upon its original release, despite a very strong promotional campaign. This was due in part to protests against some of the scandalous content at the time. The film has since found acclaim and is regarded as a classic.

Trivia
According to Eddie Muller of the Film Noir Foundation, charlatans and grifters in the new age/mystic con would use the phrase "Are you a friend of Stan Carlisle?", or a variation of it, to confirm that the person they were talking to was in the same line of business.

Goofs
The recording machine that creates a major plot point is a Wilcox-Gay disc cutter that could record at 78 or 33 rpm on a maximum disk size of ten inches. It cut at a fixed 96 lines per inch.
Unfortunately those specs limited recording time to about 3 minutes at 78 rpm and only a bit more at 33. A real professional would have used something like a Presto which cut 12-inch discs or a broadcasting machine like a Scully that could cut 16-inch disks. Even the FBI used disk cutters in pairs so one could begin recording when the others had used up all their blank disk surface. A much more likely device would have been a wire recorder which despite its limited fidelity could record speech for an hour. These units were not cheap but Dr. Ritter was obviously wealthy. Her Wilcox-Gay recorder had a retail price at that time of about $100.00 and was among the lowest-priced recorders sold.

Quotes
McGraw: Wait. I just happened to think of something. I might have a job you can take a crack at. Course it isn't much and I'm not begging you to take it, but it's a job.

Stanton Carlisle: That's all I want.

McGraw: And we'll keep you in coffee and cake. Bottle every day, place to sleep it off in. What do you say? Anyway, it's only temporary, just until we can get a real geek.
Stanton Carlisle: Geek?
McGraw: You know what a geek is, don't you?
Stanton Carlisle: Yeah. Sure, I... I know what a geek is.
McGraw: Do you think you can handle it?
Stanton Carlisle: Mister, I was made for it.

Connections
Featured in Twentieth Century Fox: The First 50 Years (1997)
Soundtracks
Sobre las olas (Over the Waves)
(uncredited)
Music by Juventino Rosas
Played during the opening carnival scene

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