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
