I review a lot less film noir in November than I do horror in October so I have far fewer traditions to revisit. One I do seem to have managed is to squeeze in a movie by one of my favourite directors, Fritz Lang. So this year I’m checking out Lang’s subversive 1954 noir “Human Desire”. The movie brings back together Glenn Ford and Gloria Grahame from Lang’s “The Big Heat” (1953), one of my personal favourites. The cast is filled out with support from Broderick Crawford and Peggy Maley. The script is from Alfred Hayes (Not the WWF interviewer from the 80’s) and based (loosely) on the novel “La Bête humaine” by Émile Zola. Burnett Guffey provides cinematography.
Jeff Warren (Ford), a Korean War veteran has just returned home and resumed his old job as a train engineer driving streamliners. While on a train travelling to Chicago he comes across Vicki (Grahame) in a state over something and spends some time with her. The pair obviously have chemistry, however later he finds out she is married to a work colleague Carl (Crawford). There is more to it though, since Carl just murdered someone on that train out of jealousy. Vicki was sent to distract Jeff so Carl could slip past him unnoticed. Jeff starts to see Vicki regularly and becomes infatuated with her, spurning the advances of the far more wholesome Jean (Maley). Vicki meanwhile sees Jeff as as her opportunity to get away from her abusive husband or rather do away with him….
Deceiver’s Descent
The combination of Lang/Ford/Grahame is one guaranteed to bring edginess and intensity to any movie. It worked superbly in The Big Heat, but this is a very different kind of story. The great thing with combo is it feels explosive, like anything can happen at any moment. Where Hitchcock can be subtle, Lang is persistent and aggressive. Ford meanwhile is one of the most intense performers of his day (Or any day) and Grahame’s is great at not just intense but also unhinged. If “Harley Quinn” was even a thing in the 50’s, she would have fit the role perfectly. All this gives the film a great deal more impact than the fairly bland story itself could hope for.
This could be seen as a subversion of the traditional noir femme fatale but not in the way it first seems. Although Vicki is ultimately unable to corrupt Jeff and bend him to her will, that’s not really the story here. Ford’s character is able to walk away from the usual film noir spiral of self destruction, but Vicki is not. The truth is the subversion is that Vicki is the real protagonist. This is her story and like most noir protagonists it is the story of her bringing about her own undoing. The movie also has a sub plot involving good gal Jean and her crush on Jeff, but this side is far less interesting than trying to figure Vicki out.
Everyone Has A Dark Side
Despite all this talk of intensity it’s worth noting that Human Desire is actually a heavily toned down adaptation of “La Bête humaine”. In the novel (Spoilers!), pretty much everyone is a murderer and pretty much everyone ends up dying. A more accurate version would have had Jeff as a psychopath rapist and even sweet innocent Jean turning into a mass murderer by orchestrating a train disaster. It’s safe to say the Hay’s code wouldn’t have any of that. So instead Jeff and Jean and basically good. Vicki on the other hand is probably more innocent in the novel. These changes are dramatic, but it is a very loose adaptation and it does work better than a more direct approach probably would have.
Story aside, the film features great cinematography showing off the railroad in the 1950’s. This makes the movie a bit of a time capsule allowing us to glance into days gone. It should be mentioned none of this really adds much to the movie and with the rail disaster removed from the story the trains only really factor in to the story as the location of the initial murder. Still, there is nothing wrong with a scenic backdrop. Overall, this is a fairly straight forward noir ont he surface with a few surprises up it’s sleeves and great performances from the two leads, especially Grahme. Not one of Lang’s best, but a very solid outing none the less. This is a solid 6.5/10. If you like Lang or either of the leads, you’ll enjoy it.
I’m going to do something a little different with this review and review and compare two movies. Both adaptations of the same source material, “Nightmare Alley” by William Lindsay Gresham, published in 1946. The first movie was adapted from the story one year later in 1947; Directed by Edmund Goulding and starring Tyrone Power as “Stanton Carlisle” it is considered a Film Noir classic (Hence why it seemed fitting to review both given my passion for Film Noir). The second movie is the latest from visionary filmmaker Guillermo del Toro and features an all star cast including Bradley Cooper (as “Carlisle”), Cate Blanchett (As Dr. Lilith Ritter), Willem DaFoe and Ron Perlman (the last two in minor roles).
Remake or new take on the same source?
Though Del Toro initially claimed his movie is not a remake of the Film Noir, the ending of the movie and the inclusion of a key line added for the 1947 movie suggests otherwise. It seems the truth is Del Toro’s movie falls somewhere between the source and it’s first adaptation. That said, as far as I can tell (Having not read the novel itself) the first movie was pretty close to the source material already so it is hard to tell where Del Toro is following the novel and where he is following the Noir. One notable difference though is that the 1947 movie adds some story to the end (which was not present in the book) while the 2021 film adds a little to the start. The bulk of the story is however the same.
Framing changes everything.
What makes the new versions distinct however (aside from being in colour of course) is some framing of the events and the personalities. In the 1947 version Tyrone Power’s “Carlisle” is competent and confident throughout. He is a clever man always on the lookout for angles. Ultimately he goes one scheme too far and becomes a victim to his own hubris. But he’s not totally irredeemable. In this version he sidesteps the fate laid out for him in the novel but ends up instead repeating the fate of the toxic relationship between his two Mentalist mentors in his early days at the carnival. So the ending is bitter sweet.
The Life and Times of Stanton Carlisle
Cooper’s Carlisle though has a much darker soul, while not without some positive qualities (For instance showing some empathy towards the Carnivals “Geek”) he has a bitter and violent side to him. Unlike Power’s version he is not a natural grifter swayed into darkness, instead the film lets us know he already has a taint on his soul, a dark act that follows him around and perhaps a hatred in his heart. This Carlisle learns the grift directly from the Carnies and with Cooper I always felt he was lying as much to himself as those he deceived.
The most notable difference between the two is how they act when things fall apart. Power’s character has become dislikable and yet I still felt some sympathy for him. He is ultimately destroyed by his two great strengths, his confidence and ability to read people. The former lead him to ignore the latter when it involved those closest to him. Cooper’s version while also a victim of his own hubris, reveals his true colours the moment things fell apart and at that point I knew his fate was sealed. It is difficult to decide which of those approaches I prefer.
For the majority of the film I would have to give it to Tyrone Power, whose performance was intense and believable, however I always felt the last act of the film where things fell apart seemed out of place for someone as together as Power’s Carlisle. Bradley Cooper’s version while I had difficulty buying his progress to the top, his fall felt both real and inevitable. The line taken from the earlier movie that has Carlisle acknowledge his own destiny seems all the more fitting in Del Toro’s movie because of this.
The Primordial She-Demon
As far as the supporting cast goes, the main other player in this story is the psychoanalyst Dr. Lilith Ritter, played by Helen Walker in the earlier movie and Cate Blanchett in Del Toro’s movie. She’s not actually in most of the movie, but her role is pivotal. In the battle of these actresses Blanchett easily wins. I always found the characters betrayal somewhat out of place in the earlier movie, sure she gets to profit financially but as a high paid psychoanalyst I felt like she should have had more to her motivation. But much like with Cooper’s Carlisle, Blanchett’s Ritter is as a far darker version of the character, bitter and twisted and holding a personal grudge against Carlisle for publicly showing her up when they first met (Even though she was trying to show him up).
She doesn’t even care about the money, she just wants to see Carlisle destroyed. What comes into question is did she plan for Carlisle’s scheme to fail all along or would this betrayal have happened further down the line anyway. It is hard to say, but either way Blanchett’s Dr. Ritter is a sociopath. It’s worth noting that as the character escapes punishment, the Motion Picture Production Code that was in play in 1974 would probably have prevented the character being portrayed in quite such a negative light for the earlier movie. Even as her role as a Noir Femme Fatale she is pushing those boundaries. It is clearly no coincidence that her name is “Lilith” (Which for those that don’t know is the name of the primordial she-demon and first wife to Adam, effectively the original Femme Fatale). Maybe it’s a little on the nose, but she earns the name for sure.
The Burden of a Good Woman
The rest of the cast is a mixed bag. Molly, Carlisle’s primary love interest has more of an elevated role in the Film Noir than Del Toro’s movie. She is the “Good Woman” character that was pretty common in the 1940’s and used in Film Noir to contrast with the Femme Fatale. She is loyal, dependable and good at heart. Because of this she is often the voice of conscience to Carlisle. It is ultimately her good nature and principles that leads to Stanton’s fall but also provides the opportunity for redemption. Ultimately the biggest failure of the grifter was to predict the actions of a good woman. While she plays essentially the same role in Del Toro’s movie she feels somewhat removed from the story until she is required to throw a spanner in the works. It seems in this darker world a “Good woman” would seem a bit too out of place, plus the trope isn’t a popular one with modern writers. So the end result is she is just kind of there.
Carnival of Lost Souls
Conversely however the other Carnies are a lot more fleshed out in Del Toro’s vision and rather unsurprisingly Willem DaFoe puts in a top notch performance to his role as Carnie boss Clem Hoatley. The Mentalist couple, Zena and Pete, that take Carlisle under their wing in the Carnival seem a lot more fleshed out too, but then Stanton has a lot more to learn about the trade in the 2021 version so they had to be. Not that they were ignored in the 1947 version, indeed their relationship provides the template for where Stanton and Molly’s ends up and because of this Pete is depicted as far more of a washed up hasbeen, with little indication to his past glories. Last of all Molly’s romantic partner at the start of the movie is significantly different between films with it being a Strong Man in the original (and not a great performance) and the carnivals Dwarf in the modern version. I couldn’t say which is closer to the novel though (If you know, feel free to tell me in the comments). The Dwarf however is backed up by Ron Perlman’s Bruno so Carlisle still get’s punched for his indiscretions.
Speaking of the Carnival, one of the most notable differences between versions is what the movies chose to show and what they chose to imply. The most obvious thing here being the carnivals “Geek”, which to those unfamiliar with the use of the work in this context, a carnival “Geek Show” features an apparently crazy man that chases around live chickens and eventually bites their heads off. The 1947 version shows only the audience reaction to this, but never shows it. Del Toro however directly depicts it. Of course they likely couldn’t show that in 1947, but still the implied spectacle was always pretty effective in film noir so that makes the approach a difficult comparison.
The Final Verdict
It’s not just the Geek that is given a more graphic spin, Del Toro also adds in a disturbing mutated baby in a jar (shown above) that also provides the film it’s final shot. None of this is really a surprise from Del Toro who always embraced the visually macabre. Of course Film Noir has its own visual style and Nightmare Alley is no exception, though it is not the best cinematography of the era. But then the 2021 version is not Del Toro’s best visual work either (Which is probably still “Pan’s Labyrinth”). Ultimately though I do have to give this one to the newer movie. One of the key elements of Film Noir is fatalism and it is actually the later movie that truly embodies that more than the first. The truth is the story here is a dark and twisted tale about not just human nature but about the dark side of the entertainment industry and it is fitting that the newer movie is so brutal in its approach. In my opinion however, this is not a great story in itself and so both versions surpassed the limitations of the source material to provide something truly entertaining.
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