Guillermo del Toro’s overly ambitious reimagining of the film noir classic Nightmare Alley, starring Bradley Cooper and Cate Blanchett.
Perhaps the most sobering thing about Hollywood’s pessimistic “black series” crime films is how it got its name. French film critics recognized the black covers of the filmed novels with which they had appeared in France. It was only later that the US proudly referred to the mostly expressive black-and-white thrillers from the 1940s under the name “film noir”.
Incidentally, William L. Gresham’s “Nightmare Alley”, filmed by Edmund Goulding in 1947, was published in France with a white cover. The film was an initial failure and a late entry into the classic canon. Tyrone Power plays an ambition-corrupted showman whose American Dream is actually the title’s nightmare. How sobering, however, is the German title, which immediately exposes the lazy magician: “The Charlatan”.
Guillermo del Toro didn’t let the difficult history of the story deter him: his remake is not a remake, but a reinterpretation of Gresham’s template. The famous film critic James Agee called the novel “intelligent trash” at the time, but attested to the filmmakers who “never forgot that the most beautiful things can be made from garbage on the screen”.
Del Toro’s film is full of beautiful things. The well-known collector of film memorabilia moved the story to 1941, obviously in order to accommodate as many museum pieces and architectural monuments as possible. Unfortunately, the setting hardly connects to the action: not the circus of oddities, where a showman-director played by Willem Dafoe presents a collection of abnormal fetuses. Nor are the lavish Art Deco lobbies and offices that Bradley Cooper’s Brandon Carlisle frequents when he first found success with his own mentalist act. In fact, the film itself feels like a visit to a carnival, with someone always shouting “walk in”.
So sluggish is the predictable rise of supporting supporting characters that their prominent performers become more interesting than what they embody: Toni Colette and David Strathairn play a run-down stage duo who teach Carlisle the crucial tricks, Rooney Mara an “electric woman” , who understandably would rather assist the self-proclaimed clairvoyant than keep reaching into sockets.
The biggest of the many stars gifted to this film, Cate Blanchett, doesn’t make an appearance until the second half. As a star psychologist, she quickly dumps the self-taught manipulator, making his tragic descent as predictable as his rise.
Were they never in the cinema?
Equipped with all sorts of loot from the unconscious of her rich clientele, she makes him an accomplice in a blackmail plot. She looks mask-like and stiff like a bad Marlene Dietrich imitation. In any case, one asks oneself, as so often in “Neo-Noir”: Were these willing helpers of hardened women never been to the cinema? Haven’t they ever seen where it leads when the postman rings twice?
It’s the first time del Toro has prioritized mumbo-jumbo over the “true” supernatural, but he fails to endow that milieu with an intriguing aura as well. It is the failure of fans in front of their own idols and what they probably love most: Above all, two classics by director Tod Browning from the showman milieu, “The Unknown” and “Freaks”, are often conjured up and yet remain like defiant ghosts prefer in the bottle.
It’s a bad time for del Toro: first part of his priceless collection fell victim to the California wildfires, now one of his most ambitious projects is failing. Tragically, it fails because of the actually so sympathetic communicativeness of the fans – because of the cinephile collector’s pride. The storytelling over the running time of two and a half hours is almost forgotten again and again through the presentation of stars and props.
Nightmare Alley. USA 2021. Director: Guillermo del Toro. 150 Min.
