A few weeks ago, I caught up with Guillermo del Toro’s “Nightmare Alley.” I was impressed and moved. I look forward to watching anything that Guillermo does, but this particular picture had a special power and resonance for me.
Then I came to realize that people just weren’t coming out for it, which was distressing. Obviously, this past holiday season was a tricky moment to release any movie. But I also wonder if there has been a real appreciation of Guillermo’s accomplishment.
I would bet that the term “noir” has appeared in most of the reviews and comments about “Nightmare Alley,” and with good reason. The characters are all haunted, many are doomed, and the film is based on a novel with the kind of wild labyrinthine plot that is a hallmark of film noir. On top of that, the novel was filmed once before, right after its publication in 1946, and the earlier version directed by Edmund Goulding has long been considered a classic of the genre.
