Nightmare Alley - Film Noir And The American Dream by Mark Osteen Page B

where shady business transpires. Tahoe, where Whit maintains a house, lies between the two, and provides the setting for many of Jeff’s pivotal decisions. The early scenes in Bridgeport usehorizontal lines, whereas the city scenes emphasize verticality. In bright, sunny Bridgeport everybody dresses casually (and the night scenes are shot day for night); the city scenes take place after dark (are shot night for night), and people dress more formally. Thus, when Stefanos first appears in Bridgeport, he looks ludicrously out of place in his dark suit and trench coat (and even more so later when he hunts Jeff in the woods, wearing the same getup). When Jeff obeys Whit’s summons and drives to Tahoe (during which he reveals his past to his girlfriend, Ann), he dons his old trench coat and fedora. Ann (Virginia Huston) and Kathie reflect the same duality: the nice, trusting small-town girl versus one of noir’s most dangerous, duplicitous, and bewitching dames. For each woman Jeff vies with another man: Jim (Richard Webb), a dull government employee, is in love with Ann (but she doesn’t love him, being more intrigued by “the mysterious Jeff Bailey”); Whit, the corrupt gambler, loves Kathie. If Jim is the man Jeff is trying to become, Whit is closer to his aboriginal self. Indeed, Jeff and Whit are doubles, as both are in love with Kathie, and Jeff initially acts as Whit’s proxy. 4
    Jeff’s wishful identity is embodied by his protégé in Bridgeport, a young, unnamed deaf boy (Dickie Moore) who works at his gas station (and who also drives a convertible, representing Jeff’s hoped-for conversion). Having remained mute about his past, Jeff has rendered others deaf to his motives and actions: he never told Whit about running off with Kathie, and he never came clean about his complicity in the death of his partner. The motif of hearing permeates the film. For example, when Stefanos first arrives in Bridgeport and enters Marny’s Cafe, she insinuates that Jeff and Ann are lovers: “I just see what I see.” Jim replies, “Are you sure you don’t see what you hear?” She later tells Stefanos, “Seems like everything people ought to know, they just don’t want to hear.” Later Whit asks Jeff, “Can you still listen?” Jeff answers, “I can hear.” But he can’t hear Whit’s real motives—or his own. If Jeff first acts as Whit’s surrogate, the deaf boy later acts as Jeff’s, using his fishing rod to pull Stefanos from a cliff to his death, and at the end allowing Ann to believe that Jeff was in love with Kathie, so as to free her to marry Jim. 5
    Jeff does tell the truth—or what he believes to be the truth—to Ann during the drive to Tahoe: that he aims to square things with Whit, pay for doing something wrong once, and dismiss Markham forever. But not only is Whit setting him up as a fall guy; Kathie is manipulating both men for her own ends. Indeed, she is Jeff’s closest foil in the film: both are riven by conflicting emotions and allegiances, and their resemblance is suggested repeatedly through dialogue, blocking, and cinematography. The most significant moment in their relationship occurs after Jeff and Kathie return from their Mexican “dream” (“maybe wethought we’d wake up … in Niagara Falls”) and, after parting, meet again in a secluded house. But Fisher has tracked her and demands the forty grand she insists she doesn’t have. As the scene unfolds, Jeff is gradually engulfed in shadows; then, in a superb quasi-expressionist sequence, the two men fight while Kathie, clearly enjoying the spectacle, looks on. At the very moment Jeff appears to have knocked out his ex-partner, Kathie shoots and kills Fisher, then absconds. The scene’s shadows convey Jeff’s emotions—depression, guilt, and shame for being duped—and his recognition of his complicity (it is
his
flashback). During the fight sequence the two men’s shadows are indistinguishable as they play over Kathie’s face: she