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Nightmare Alley
Directed by
Edmund Goulding
Passed
1947
1h 51m
Drama
,
Crime
,
and more
7.7
87%
86%
7.2
Add to Watchlist
The rise and fall of Stanton Carlisle, a mentalist whose lies and deceit prove to be his downfall.
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Where to Watch Nightmare Alley
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Cast of Nightmare Alley
Tyrone Power
Stanton 'Stan' Carlisle
Helen Walker
Lilith Ritter
Coleen Gray
Molly Carlisle
Joan Blondell
Zeena Krumbein
Taylor Holmes
Ezra Grindle
Mike Mazurki
Bruno
Ian Keith
Pete Krumbein
Roy Roberts
McGraw / Final Carnival Owner (uncredited)
Florence Auer
Jane (uncredited)
Bonnie Bannon
Knife Thrower's Assistant (uncredited)
George Beranger
The Geek (uncredited)
Oliver Blake
Hobo (uncredited)
June Bolyn
Maid in Grindle House (uncredited)
Chet Brandenburg
Carnival Patron (uncredited)
James Burke
Rural Marshal (uncredited)
George Chandler
Hobo at Stan's Left Hand (uncredited)
Harry Cheshire
Mr. Prescott (uncredited)
Edward Clark
J.E. Giles / Farmer (uncredited)
Clancy Cooper
Stage Manager (uncredited)
George Davis
Waiter (uncredited)
Nightmare Alley Ratings & Reviews
The New Yorker
Pauline Kael
The material... is unusual and the cast first-rate.
Film Frenzy
Matt Brunson
One of the bleakest of all '40s flicks.
Backseat Mafia
Rob Aldam
An entertaining drama which explores the perils of flying too close to the sun.
Gone With The Twins
Mike Massie
Although this story is unexpectedly macabre and sinister, the finale is easily guessable and better fit for a "Twilight Zone" episode than a feature-length production.
Philadelphia Inquirer
Mildred Martin
If Nightmare Alley isn't precisely tasty entertainment, at least it has been colorfully and harshly set forth with better than average character sketches lending it a certain unsavory interest and morbid fascination.
Detroit Free Press
Helen Bower
All together the film has a great deal of accumulative impact. It is a thoroughly unpleasant, but salutary picture. It should pull both potential dupes and the potentially ruthless up good and short.
Chicago Tribune
Mae Tinée
The dialogue has plenty of punch, and the photography, especially in the tawdry tent world, is expert. If you like your movies rough and realistic, you'll find this one entertaining for the most part.
New York Times
Thomas M. Pryor
Despite some fine and intense acting by Mr. Power and others, this film traverses distasteful dramatic ground and only rarely does it achieve any substance as entertainment.
Los Angeles Times
Philip K. Scheuer
Edmund Goulding is a director who knows how to squeeze emotions out of players; and his production, repellent as its theme may be, develops considerable fascination up to the closing reel or so.
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Myles Standish
The hero is a heel from beginning to end. He doesn't merit or get any sympathy from the audience, and the ending is merely depressing.
Fort Worth Star-Telegram/DFW.com
Ida Belle Hicks
As entertainment, Nightmare Alley is a sordid, spellbinding piece of screen fare suitable only for adults of the sturdy type. It is a gripping melodrama well produced, expertly directed and acted.
New York Daily News
Kate Cameron
Although Nightmare Alley has been given a substantial production background by 20th Century-Fox, excellent direction by Edmund Goulding and competent acting by its cast, the story of the charlatan is too unpleasant warrant a hearty endorsement.
Chicago Reader
Dave Kehr
This dark and determinedly sleazy 1947 film comes as quite a surprise from its director -- Edmund Goulding, whose specialty through the 30s, in films like Grand Hotel and The Old Maid, was his inveterate tastefulness... A fascinating anomaly.
New York Times
Elvis Mitchell
Power is a little old for the part. It's hard to fight a wince every time someone refers to him as ''kid.'' But his performance is deft and real.
Boston Globe
Marjory Adams
To many film-goers Nightmare Alley will be too unpleasant in subject to please as entertainment. However, the acting is first rate, although the photography is too murky for a clear idea of what is going on.
The Hollywood Reporter
THR Staff
Emerges on the screen as a study in realistic horror which might just as well be recorded now as one of the finest pictures of the year. Gripping, exciting and suspenseful, it is a grim, relentless account of a man's degeneration.
TIME Magazine
James Agee
Scripter Jules Furthman and Director Edmund Goulding have ... seldom forgotten that the original novel they were adapting is essentially intelligent trash; and they have never forgotten that on the screen pretty exciting things can be made of trash.
Variety
Variety Staff
Nightmare Alley is a harsh, brutal story told with the sharp clarity of an etching.
San Francisco Chronicle
Mick LaSalle
A strange and rather sick movie made by highly talented people.
Village Voice
J. Hoberman
Neither a great movie nor even a classic noir but it has a great ambition to be daring and, once seen, is not easily forgotten.
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