Soon Stan and Molly are playing big nightclubs, Stan billed as "The Great Stanton." One night, psychologist Lillith Ritter attends the show, and, suspicious of the act, tries to outwit Stan by submitting a question about the health of her mother. However, when Stan replies that her mother is deceased, Lillith invites Stan to her office. Their interview is interrupted by the unexpected arrival of Mrs. Peabody, one of Lillith's socialite patients, and Stan discovers the psychiatrist recording her sessions. Stan proposes a partnership, but Lillith angrily kicks him out.
Later, much to Stan's displeasure, Zeena and Bruno pay a visit. Reading her Tarot cards, Zeena predicts disaster, and Stan orders them to leave. Afterward, the smell of alcohol triggers memories of Pete. Panicking, Stan contacts Lillith at her office and tells her the story of his part in Pete's death. This seals the deal between Stan and Lillith.
Despite Zeena's fears, Stan plans to embark upon "the spook racket" with Lillith. They first fleece Mrs. Peabody,and after that success, she brings in the prominent Ezra Grindle. Grindle sets out to expose Stan, but with the information provided by Lillith, Stan convinces Grindle of his authenticity, and Grindle gives Stan $150,000 to build a tabernacle and promises a radio station if he can contact Dorrie, Grindle's long-lost love. Stan hands Lilith the cash for safekeeping. Studying photographs of Dorrie, Stan persuades Molly to impersonate the dead woman's spirit. However, Molly, unable to bear his anguish, reveals her true dentity and runs off. Furious, Grindle attacks Stan, who knocks down the elderly man and runs away.
When Stan goes to collect his money, Lillith reminds him that she possesses a recording of his confession concerning Pete's death. When he hears a police siren, Stan runs away to meet Molly at the train station, where he hands her their life savings as her train pulls away. Descending into alcoholic oblivion, Stan is reduced to telling fortunes to hoboes along the railroad tracks. One day Stan comes across a carnival where the owner offers him a drink and the job of geek. Smiling, Stan says he was "made for it." Later that night, Stan goes berserk. Alarmed, Molly who works at the carnival finds Stan and promises she will look after him.
Coleen Gray and Tyrone Power
The film makes several important departures from Gresham's work. In the novel, Stan has a former lover whom he impregnates and then convinces to have an abortion. She dies. In addition, in the novel when Stan gives Pete the liquor, his actions are more deliberate, more calculating. He knows it is wood alcohol. Gresham's story ends with Stan approaching a carny boss for a job as a mitt reader. The boss rejects the idea, but then he says, "I got one job you might take a crack at. It ain't much, and I ain't begging you to take it; but it's a job. Keep you in coffee and cakes and a shot now and them. What do you say? Of course it's only temporary-- just until we can get a real geek." The book offers no comforting conclusion, no last minute rescue by Molly, no possibility of a brighter future, no redemption.
Despite an ending that was a sop to Hollywood conventions, this film remains one of the most caustic and cynical of all film noirs. Perhaps scriptwriter Jules Furthman softened the character of Stan Carlisle, made him less the sociopath and more the poor boy dazzled by riches, but the
Helen Walker and Tyrone Power |
Stan Carlisle of the film remains a startling departure for Tyrone Power, far more intriguing than his many swashbuckler roles with which the public identified him. Although Power was a little old for the role--as the novel opens, Stan is only 21--his performance ranks among the most compelling of his career and one of the most impressive in all of film noir.
Joan Blondell, already in middle age, played Zeena with just the right amount of sexuality and sincerity. When Stan throws her over for the younger Molly, she makes no effort to get him back. Instead, she joins Bruno in insisting that Stan marry Molly. Mike Mazurki as Bruno the strongman obviously loves Molly, but he recognizes he has no chance with her, but when he sees that Stan has seduced her, he forces to marry her. Their actions and the actions of the rest of the carny people are those of a highly moral society. They may fleece the rubes but never each other.
Throughout the film, the character of Stan seduces people with false sincerity and an almost evangelical zeal even thought he denigrates the carny people and their beliefs. Still when Zeena first reads the Tarot cards that predict his fate, Stan displays an uneasy countenance. Later he possesses information that he could not possibly know, even through his tricks. When Lilith Ritter first tries to show him up as a charlatan, he turns the tables on her. Is he truly psychic? Or does he simply have an insight into the soul of human beings? Certainly he sees through Lilith. When she calls him a charlatan, he tells her, "It takes one to know one." Whatever Stan's abilities, he fails to realize one thing--that the geek resides within all of us--and when Lilith betrays him, he falls from grace and descends into the depth of alcoholism.
William Lindsay Gresham wrote only one more novel, the equally bleak Limbo Tower (1949) about Asa Kimball and other men slowly dying of fear, depression, and tuberculosis in a hospital. He later fought his own battles against alcohol. His second wife Joy divorced him and taking their two sons, moved to England where she married C. S. Lewis. Their relationship became the basis for the stage play and film Shadowlands. When in 1962 Gresham discovered he had cancer, he checked into the run-down Dixie Hotel, registering as 'Asa Kimball,' and took his own life.
Just before he died, Gresham, reflecting on his life, told a fellow veteran from Spain, "I sometimes think that if I have any real talent it is not literary but is a sheer talent for survival. I have survived three busted marriages, losing my boys, war, tuberculosis, Marxism, alcoholism, neurosis and years of freelance writing. Just too mean and ornery to kill, I guess."
Print quality : An absolutely gorgeous print. I doubt it looked this good in the theaters when it was first released.
Sound : Sharp and clear.
Extras : A theatrical trailer that appears spliced together from various scenes rather than a true trailer. Also a commentary by film historians James Ursini and Alain Silver. The commentary sounds more like a conversation between two knowledgeable experts rather than a straight commentary, and this casual approach works very well. Their comments are insightful if not exactly spirited.
Summary : A terrific film noir, one of the best. Off beat in the sense that it foregoes crimes and violence, which is at the center of most noir films. The characters are full of life and always interesting. Only the part of Molly rings a bit false, especially considering the ill-advised end. Still this remains a gritty and honest movie. Time has vindicated Tyrone Power's faith in this material.
Grade: A-
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