|
The kinship with Goulding's Nightmare Alley has been sufficiently noted, the one with Fellini's Il Bidone less so. The sideshow racket, a common motto in both Old and New World, "catch the crowd." The mystic (Aileen Pringle) captivates the European camp, bound behind a black curtain then suddenly free and with extra limbs. Papa (Mitchell Lewis) and dagger-throwing sidekick (Robert Ober) complete the act, "too small a scale" according to the American con man (Conway Tearle) with eyes on the big time. Off to New York as gypsy royalty specializing in séances, the target is the wealthy heiress (Gladys Hulette), the police inspector suspects "a clever crook's brain" behind it all. A métier of tricks, carnival and cinema considered by Tod Browning in this variant of The Unholy Three. (He exposes the hidden wall panels and electrified door knobs the characters work with while offering illusions of his own, like the scenery that wobbles to visualize the interior of a moving wagon.) Clasped hands in the dark, spectral figure and pointing finger, all part of the bogus spiritualist's trance. Afterward the servant in exotic robes unwinds with stogie and dice, the ringleader gobbles and jests. "Maybe he's going to let you chuck knives at him, you Hungarian goulash!" The score involves the maiden's jewels, the fake apparition is answered by a true one, conscience rears its inconvenient head. Unexpected redemption, warped romance: "If you love me, prove it by robbing her of everything she's got!" Wood takes up the composition, or rather cracks it open, in Night of the Ghouls. With David Torrence, DeWitt Jennings, and Stanton Heck. In black and white.
--- Fernando F. Croce |