Capital Celluloid 2024 — Day 304: Wed Nov 6

Nightmare Alley (Goulding, 1947): Chiswick Cinema, 8pm

This film is part of the Noirvember season at Chiswick Cinema and will be introduced by season programmer Matthew Turner.

Chicago Reader review:
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 (although, come to think of it, the sleaze of Nightmare Alley has a suspicious gloss). Tyrone Power stars as a sideshow barker who successfully promotes himself as a mind reader, only to have his ruthlessness catch up with him in a finale that still seems shockingly draconian, particularly where a matinee idol like Power is concerned. A fascinating anomaly. With Colleen Gray and Joan Blondell; the screenplay, adapted from William Lindsay Gresham’s novel, is by Howard Hawks’s frequent collaborator Jules Furthman.
Dave Kehr

Here (and above) is the trailer.