Nightmare Alley, new film from strange book

Director Guillermo del Toro’s new film version of “Nightmare Alley” is about to open in theaters. 

The movie stars Bradley Cooper, Cate Blanchett, Toni Collette, Willem Dafoe, Rooney Mara and a lot of other big names. 

Here’s hoping it is as good as director Edmund Goulding’s 1947 version starring Tyrone Power, Coleen Gray, Joan Blondell and Helen Walker. 

And here’s hoping it sticks closer to the unsettling weirdness of William Lindsay Gresham’s 1946 novel of the same name, but without going too far off the deep end, as Guillermo del Toro is apt to do. 

A few years ago, I wrote a piece about the novel. You can read it here.