Movie #2083 "Nightmare Alley" 2021 (movie theatre) Earlier this year I watched and blogged on the 1947 version, which was just okay with me ---this one is also just okay with me, but for lots of different reasons. This is much better photographed, better acted, and pushes much more the aspects of film noir. And what better subject of a film's creepiness than to focus on the carny life. Carny life has been shown in several movies, like "Greatest Show on Earth" (Jimmy Stewart as the sad clown), and lately "The Greatest Showman" (with Hugh Jackman), just to mention a few. But rarely has it shown the creepiness of it all , like this one --- mostly because of the Hayes' code in the earlier years. So along comes Del Toro and he has his film include all the freaks and yes the "Geek" ---a part of the carny life that people whisper stories about. Both 1947 and 2021 versions of this story center on the con, esp. of mind reading. And the lead guy (Bradley Cooper in this version - who is never bad to look at, even when he is passed out drunk on the ground!) learns all the "con" entails: you first find the victim, get an assistant and do some research, set up the con, get the costumes and the props, and then the con itself. We have seen this in a better film before (does "The sting" come to mind) and we try to figure out where this is all going --- it's obvious there will be a final "sting" as there was in 1947, but this ending went in a direction I found really hard to believe. Things started to happen with the Cooper character that I don't think went along with his character..... there was some foreshadowing, but he was usually an observer, and it's hard to believe he would become a doer so quickly. So I guess what I am saying is that I enjoyed the film's mood ( film noir), photography, its creepiness, its great acting (Colette, Straihern, Cooper, Rooney, Jenkins, Blanchett (although, she was a bit too over the line to me - in the original she was more just an ice princess with brains) but not the ending. I read that the Hayes' code didn't allow the ending that the director wanted in 1947 --- but I actually preferred the , dare I say its "nicer" ending --- I don't want to give anything away for either film, but sufficeth it to say this was a tough one to watch in comparison to the 1947 one. But whose to say? You might like this one better (Remember, I am a Hallmark Christmas movie fan, so there's that)! I'd give this a 4 out of 5 and recommend it , but not to the faint of heart. I also recommend seeing it on a big screen.
"NIGHTMARE ALLEY" 2021 rated R 2 hours and 30 mins
An ambitious carny with a talent for manipulating people with a few well-chosen words hooks up with a female psychiatrist who is even more dangerous than he is.
Director: Guillermo del Toro
Writers: Guillermo del Toro, Kim Morgan, William Lindsay Gresham
Stars: Bradley Cooper, Cate blanchett, Toni Collette
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