Nightmare Alley - Film Noir And The American Dream by Mark Osteen
Authors: Mark Osteen
Tags: United States, General, History, Performing Arts, Film & Video, History & Criticism, Americas (North; Central; South; West Indies)
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the corner or overshadowed by others. Likewise, as the backlit Ole strides down an archway after refusing Sam’s offer to become a cop, Siodmak implies that he is already enclosed by fate.
Indeed, Ole is rarely the primary agent in his own story, and when he is, he makes foolish decisions, such as pursuing Kitty Collins (Ava Gardner)—even going to jail for her—instead of staying with the stable Lily (Virginia Christine), and then becoming involved in the hat factory heist instead of emulating his mentor, Charleston (Vince Barnett), who finds the job too risky. The first time Ole sees Kitty, in fact, Siodmak renders his infatuation almost comically, by placing a brightly lit phallic bulb between him and the singing siren. Ole can’t take his eyes off her, but another organ motivates him even more powerfully. The Swede isn’t very bright; but more than that, as the structure implies, he is a secondary character in his own life.
In
The Killers
, Ole Anderson (Burt Lancaster) falls in love with Kitty Collins (Ava Gardner) at first sight.
Kobal Collection / Art Resource, NY
.
Charleston, his former cellmate, remembers him fondly. In fact, Charleston was in love with Ole and spent long evenings in prison teaching him about astronomy and advising him that women, whom he’s “studied up on” when not in stir, aren’t reliable. But Ole doesn’t listen and continues to stroke the green, harp-covered handkerchief that Kitty gave him—the fetishized “symbol of [his] dreams” (Shadoian 84). This handkerchief becomes Reardon’s fetish as well, as he carries it with him throughout the investigation. This totem raises the question of why Reardon becomes obsessed with the murder of a man he calls a “nobody.” There’s very little in it for the insurance company: the $2,500 death benefit Swede left to the hotel maid is not worth Reardon’s time; the money from the heist will merely become part of next year’s rate adjustment (while his boss relays this fact, Reardon plays with Kitty’s handkerchief).
One answer is that Reardon is an investigator by nature. Like Sam Spade, he delights in the thrill of the hunt; he’s a hound for truth and believes there is sucha thing. But another, more complex, answer speaks to the theme of self-reinvention. We know nothing about Reardon before the pursuit begins: in contrast to Anderson, who exists only as a collection of others’ memories, Reardon has “no past” (Shadoian 83). The more absorbed he becomes in Ole’s life, the more like Ole and his underworld associates he grows: his first interviews are with law-abiding folk, but his later interviews are with Charleston, Blinky Franklin, Dum Dum (Jack Lambert), Colfax, and Kitty—criminals, every one. Indeed, partway through his investigation Reardon occupies the same room in Brentwood where Ole was killed—ostensibly to catch Dum Dum but also to reenact the death scene. The mise-en-scène here even repeats the shadowy atmosphere of that sequence, as Reardon, a novice at the detective game, waits for Dum Dum. But this time Rear-don holds the gun: he has become “the killer.” He even lets Dum Dum believe that he wants the money for himself. In short, just as the opening scene’s killers parrot the tough-guy lingo of 1930s gangster movies (as in the Hemingway short story on which the film is loosely based), so Reardon now plays at being a movie thug. But not very successfully: Dum Dum easily takes the gun away and subdues him.
Reardon is clearly fascinated by these crooked characters and gets a thrill from associating with them; he “fills his emptiness with a vicarious dream” (Shadoian 84). This adventure gives him a chance to inhabit a much more exciting world than the bland offices where he spends his days as a functionary. In some respects he even resembles Anderson: if Ole is an unwitting victim of others’ machinations, Reardon is subject to the cold realities of the actuarial tables. Like Ole, Reardon is a
Indeed, Ole is rarely the primary agent in his own story, and when he is, he makes foolish decisions, such as pursuing Kitty Collins (Ava Gardner)—even going to jail for her—instead of staying with the stable Lily (Virginia Christine), and then becoming involved in the hat factory heist instead of emulating his mentor, Charleston (Vince Barnett), who finds the job too risky. The first time Ole sees Kitty, in fact, Siodmak renders his infatuation almost comically, by placing a brightly lit phallic bulb between him and the singing siren. Ole can’t take his eyes off her, but another organ motivates him even more powerfully. The Swede isn’t very bright; but more than that, as the structure implies, he is a secondary character in his own life.
In
The Killers
, Ole Anderson (Burt Lancaster) falls in love with Kitty Collins (Ava Gardner) at first sight.
Kobal Collection / Art Resource, NY
.
Charleston, his former cellmate, remembers him fondly. In fact, Charleston was in love with Ole and spent long evenings in prison teaching him about astronomy and advising him that women, whom he’s “studied up on” when not in stir, aren’t reliable. But Ole doesn’t listen and continues to stroke the green, harp-covered handkerchief that Kitty gave him—the fetishized “symbol of [his] dreams” (Shadoian 84). This handkerchief becomes Reardon’s fetish as well, as he carries it with him throughout the investigation. This totem raises the question of why Reardon becomes obsessed with the murder of a man he calls a “nobody.” There’s very little in it for the insurance company: the $2,500 death benefit Swede left to the hotel maid is not worth Reardon’s time; the money from the heist will merely become part of next year’s rate adjustment (while his boss relays this fact, Reardon plays with Kitty’s handkerchief).
One answer is that Reardon is an investigator by nature. Like Sam Spade, he delights in the thrill of the hunt; he’s a hound for truth and believes there is sucha thing. But another, more complex, answer speaks to the theme of self-reinvention. We know nothing about Reardon before the pursuit begins: in contrast to Anderson, who exists only as a collection of others’ memories, Reardon has “no past” (Shadoian 83). The more absorbed he becomes in Ole’s life, the more like Ole and his underworld associates he grows: his first interviews are with law-abiding folk, but his later interviews are with Charleston, Blinky Franklin, Dum Dum (Jack Lambert), Colfax, and Kitty—criminals, every one. Indeed, partway through his investigation Reardon occupies the same room in Brentwood where Ole was killed—ostensibly to catch Dum Dum but also to reenact the death scene. The mise-en-scène here even repeats the shadowy atmosphere of that sequence, as Reardon, a novice at the detective game, waits for Dum Dum. But this time Rear-don holds the gun: he has become “the killer.” He even lets Dum Dum believe that he wants the money for himself. In short, just as the opening scene’s killers parrot the tough-guy lingo of 1930s gangster movies (as in the Hemingway short story on which the film is loosely based), so Reardon now plays at being a movie thug. But not very successfully: Dum Dum easily takes the gun away and subdues him.
Reardon is clearly fascinated by these crooked characters and gets a thrill from associating with them; he “fills his emptiness with a vicarious dream” (Shadoian 84). This adventure gives him a chance to inhabit a much more exciting world than the bland offices where he spends his days as a functionary. In some respects he even resembles Anderson: if Ole is an unwitting victim of others’ machinations, Reardon is subject to the cold realities of the actuarial tables. Like Ole, Reardon is a
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