The Ending
Del Toro’s conclusion is faithful to the book, almost to the word, except for the shared line which defines both adaptations. Del Toro mischievously personalizes the setting of the last scene, bringing attention to Enoch, the prized curio of treasured grotesquery. There may come a day, when Stanton can end up in a jar like that. Cooper’s character would love that. His interpretation is enshrined in a long shot of utter despair, after being the only one in on the best joke he’s ever heard.
Born or made, Cooper’s Stan is the geek in flesh, one carny to another. Mentalism is old fashioned, and the former headliner has been dodging the fallout of the spook racket for far too long. He came from society’s outer fringe, traded in the watch he stole from his dad for a shot of the booze he swears he “never” touches, and chicken blood is starting to look good. Psychic readers never see what’s coming to them, a sucker is born every day, and Stan is just another chump. He’s only actually taken two jobs in his life, and it doesn’t look like this one is temporary. There won’t be another geek to come along and take his place. It was always his fate.
Director Goulding was forced to add an additional scene to the 1947 film in order to give the appearance of some kind of happy ending. Power’s Stan breaks under the pressure of being a geek. He looked at that shot glass just as eagerly as Cooper’s broken rummy, but he tries to get out. He was made for it, mister, not born that way, like the guy who sang with Lady Gaga. In the final scene, Power’s Stan is like the monster caught in the alley in American Werewolf in London. But instead of being killed by angry carnival workers, Molly talks him down, and promises to take care of him. Even the darkest noir films of the time had to give the appearance of possible redemption.
Period Piece vs. Contemporary Film
The original Nightmare Alley was made a year after the novel became a notorious hit. It was a contemporary story. Del Toro’s film is a period piece, which begins in 1939 and mirrors the buildup to World War II. Goulding was a versatile filmmaker, directing comedies like Everybody Does It, war movies such as The Dawn Patrol, romances and family dramas. He took on psychiatry for The Flame Within, and explored esoteric spiritual quests in The Razor’s Edge. While he wasn’t nominated for Best Director, his film Grand Hotel won the Oscar for Best Picture. A hands-on filmmaker, Goulding co-wrote scripts without credit, composed incidental music, and was an authority on developments in wardrobe, hair, and makeup for motion pictures.
For Nightmare Alley, Goulding was influenced by post-war Italian cinema. His noir classic is a neo-realism film which was hobbled by Hollywood censorship. The del Toro film is free to wallow more graphically in the nihilistic immorality, and is a full cinematic experience. Nothing in the 2021 film plays out in real-time, the camera moves, action overtakes suspense, and Nathan Johnson’s soundtrack is impressive, possibly his best. Goulding shot in a documentary style, with long static settings, and Cyril Mockridge’s score is exquisitely minimalist.
Del Toro is a modern master. His Oscar-winning films, Pan’s Labyrinth and The Shape of Water, are timeless classics with vastly divergent visual and storytelling approaches. Pacific Rim and Crimson Peak indulged inventive genre boundary-pushing. Del Toro brings spectacle to Nightmare Alley when it’s really a “one-in-ten” tent show. This makes the underlying subterfuge too literal. The amber glow is computer generated, and while the environments evoke the space between transcendence and damnation, the sets are more elaborately haunting than realistic. Goulding’s cinematographer, Lee Garmes, allowed the natural chaos of mundane carnival clutter, shrouded by tarps and filtered through cigarette smoke and commonplace shadows, to create its own eerie menace.