NIGHTMARE ALLEY Guest Artistic Director

Totally unknown in Spain, for me this was one of the discoveries of this summer. With strong supporting performances by Joan Blondell and Coleen Gray, it tells of the rise and fall of an attractive mentalist with the face and, in particular, the eyes of Tyrone Power. I was never an admirer of Tyrone Power, but I admit that in this film he radiates power (mental, sexual and interpretive). Tyrone Power has one of those faces without edges or angles, more suitable for courting leading ladies than for provoking fear and much less for feeling it. Here he overcomes the cliche to which Hollywood usually condemned the handsome actors of his time. The first part of NIGHTMARE ALLEY is set in a fifth-rate carnival. Besides the voraciously ambitious character played by Tyrone Power, there is a secondary character who lives on the lowest rung of human degradation, a terminal alcoholic they call the “gee k” because he devours raw animals in front of the spectators. The “geek” spends the day screaming in despair, often stuffed into a straitjacket that keeps his despair alive until it’s time to go on stage and use his teeth to tear apart the live animals he’s offered and then eat them. Only after his “performance” does he receive the reward of his daily allowance of alcohol. He is one of the most horrifying characters I remember in a film that isn’t a horror film. After narrating the irresistible rise of the mentalist, we discover with surprise that what the film is telling us is the making of the unredeemed alcoholic. After a run of bad luck, the unscrupulous mentalist meets his downfall and we see how it is he who ends up becoming the “geek” in a miserable carnival . The ending is sordid and moving, humble in form, without adornments, but terrifying.