Hi, I'm here at the TCM Classic Film Fest in Hollywood. Unfortunately no Tyrone Power movies scheduled but I did see The Big Trail today with Tyrone Power Sr. in a major supporting role as the main villain. :)

I checked my e-mail to find a couple of (not too postiive) reviews of a MUSICAL version of Nightmare Alley on stage here in the L.A. area. I thought they might be of tangential interest here so here they are.

>From Variety:

Nightmare Alley
(Geffen Playhouse, Westwood; 522 seats; $75 top)

by Bob Verini

A Geffen Playhouse presentation of a musical in two acts with book, music
and lyrics by Jonathan Brielle. Directed by Gilbert Cates. Choreography, Kay
Cole. Musical direction, Gerald Sternbach.

Stan - James Barbour
Molly - Sarah Glendening
Zeena/Dr. Lilith Ritter - Mary Gordon Murray
Pete/Sheriff/Addie Peabody - Larry Cedar
Clem/Ezra Grimble - Michael McCarty

One of America's deepest, darkest, dirtiest noir fictions, William Lindsay Gresham's "Nightmare Alley," is bowdlerized and sanitized for your
protection in Jonathan Brielle's musicalization at the Geffen Playhouse.
While the novel still shocks today as it exposes the nexus of religion, spiritualism and sensuality underlying the American dream, here it's reduced
to a humdrum showbiz-as-life decadence metaphor, and a morality play whose
message would have been well received in the popular theater of 1912.

In the famous 1947 movie, itself watered down but far less toothless than
this tuner, Tyrone Power is perfectly cast as Stan, an opportunistic little
pisher whose raw sexuality fuels his ruthless rise from carnival stooge to
stage mentalist; he finally becomes a James Van Praagh type, consulting the
wealthy in their intercourse with the dead.

To tailor this alleycatting swindler to a burly Broadway belter like James
Barbour, who can do "Jekyll & Hyde" in stride and has a great Jean Valjean
in him one day, is to set aside all the desperate vulnerability (including a
nagging Oedipal conflict) at the heart of Gresham's critique.

Barbour's Stan is just an overeager snake oil peddler, whose expanding
ambition makes him neglect the love of Good Woman Molly (Sarah Glendening)
until his flouting of various commandments demands he be punished and he
sings "There's Nobody Home." There's no descent to the deepest circles of
Hell here, just a short detour to Palookaville as the cast gets lit from
beneath and glares at us accusingly.

Enough of Gresham's plot threads have been removed or twisted to render the
action incomprehensible. The older women Stan beds in the novel -- a kindly
carny with true second sight and Dr. Lilith, perhaps the most rapacious
female shrink in all of fiction -- are handed to Mary Gordon Murray with
sexuality eliminated and purpose blunted. She mostly stands around and
smirks.

Helmer Gilbert Cates presents Stan's victims with camp rather than
complexity (one dowager is a fellow in drag), while Glendening has the
impossible task of charting spunky Molly's now-in, now-out thrall to the
hoaxter's spell.

Brielle's score goes heavy on the ragtime, a toe-tapping but overfamiliar
choice after Kander and Ebb's "Chicago" and "Steel Pier." Barbour gets one
beautiful ballad, "I Surrender," whose sentiments don't really apply to this
role, and there's a title tune so reminiscent of "Be Italian" from "Nine"
that you await a tarantella.

It doesn't arrive, but choreographer Kay Cole does have her pleasingly
zaftig chorines circling Stan in a sort of witches' hora during one of his
more put-upon moments.

Sets, John Arnone; costumes, Christina Haatainen Jones; lighting, Daniel
Ionazzi; sound, Brian Hsieh; orchestration, Irwin Fisch; production stage
manager, Mary Michele Miner. Opened, reviewed Apr. 21, 2010; runs through
May 23. Running time: 2 HOURS, 10 MIN.

With: Melody Butiu, Travis Leland, Anise E. Ritchie, Leslie Stevens, Alet
Taylor, Burke Walton.

x x x x x

>From The Hollywood Reporter:

Nightmare Alley

by Laurence Vittes

Like it or not, anything called "Nightmare Alley" has to be compared to the
the 1947 movie starring Tyrone Power and Joan Blondell, which remains an
essential film noir classic.

Although Jonathan Brielle does a neat job of compressing the action into two
hours onstage, he fails to capitalize on the terrible implications of
falling from grace into a hell beyond the reaches of spirituality or
religion, and neither his lyrics nor music is memorable.

Using all his craft and experience, director Gil Gates has put together an
awesome production that uses fabrics and visuals to stretch the Geffen
Playhouse into a genuine carny environment. He also seems to get from each
actor the maximum that they have to give. But adding chicken head-biting
crunches to the geek sequences that bookend the evening is no substitute for
the suggestion of crunching that made Power's and the audience's skin crawl
with fear.

At times it seems as if the play is going to be entirely narrative, with
flashbacks provided by Zeena (Mary Gordon Murray, whose warmth and
authenticity holds the evening together). But finally the action begins with
the entrance of Stan (James Barbour, in the Power role). His tall, dark and
handsome presence and powerful singing initially dominate the stage, but his
acting lacks the nuances of stupidity, fear and greed that -- in contrast
with occasional flashes of stolid charm -- make his character so
fascinating. Sarah Glendening holds her own as his love interest, with a
lovely soprano and the kind of spunky energy often found in the Midwest,
until the need to wraps things up pushes her aside toward the end.

As a further sign of the project's weakness, I don't think anyone originally
intended for the character of Pete to steal the show. Perhaps Larry Cedar's
toolkit of inventive, endearing bits of business and his ability to take on
three roles, including an ancestor of Lily Tomlin's eccentric women and a
gullible sheriff, changed the director's mind. Simply, whatever is happening
in the story stops the moment Cedar steps onstage as he effortlessly rustles
up laughter and dances the fool as if he were going to float off into space.

Christina Haatinen Jones' costumes are bold and arresting; those for the
four women who make up the chorus are grim reminders of what the 1930s were in the sticks. Great work, too, from conductor Gerald Sternbach and the
hard-working musicians in the pit.

Wow, you're there :-)!!! What are your impressions? did you talk to Osborne (he's something of a cable superstar, at this point :-)) Was it at a vintage theatre? Ok, I'll stop :-).....

AND a Nightmare Alley musical, eh?! Have to admit that sounds like a strange idea (I'm thining it probably won't make it to Broadway). Still, it's interesting to read what the critics make of it (at least they called Power "perfect casting")

Well, I WAS there. I've crashed back to reality and am now home. :)

I saw Robert Osborne several times when he introduced films but didn't talk to him. I've seen him in person before though here in Atlanta.

I did get to speak to Leonard Maltin for a few seconds and thank him for supporting classic film and shake his hand. ;) He was standing in the aisle with his wife as the audience exited Grauman's Chinese after the mind-blowing screening of the restored Metropolis and I figured it was now or never to have my moment with him. ;) So I grabbed it while I could. ;)

It was an AMAZING four days and I can't wait for next year's festival!

I have to admit, I'm mighty jealous :-)! What a treat it must have been. Not only the films but the ambiance the whole event provides, not to mention the theatres themselves!

What was Maltin like, btw? any other impressions on "Metropolis" and other films that you saw?

I'll stop with the questions now :-)!

Good for you that you went, Peachtree!!

Leonard Maltin was very gracious during our 20 second or so encounter though I don't think he said much more than you're welcome when I thanked him for supporting classic film. ;)

Metropolis was somewhere way way WAY beyond awesome. It looked spectacular on the huge Grauman's Chinese Theatre screen, the re-editing and newly-restored additional 25 mins. of footage are invaluable -- for the first time, the story actually makes sense and I was as engaged with the characters as I was with the monumental sets, the Alloy Orchestra's percussive score was perfect for this kind of modernist movie, and the atmosphere in the theater was electrifying, as it was the culminating event of the festival, EVERYONE was there, Robert Osborne hosted and announced there would be a second festival next year... it was one of the most incredible cinematic experiences I've ever had.

Besides Metropolis, for me the highlights of the festival were:

Newly restored print of the early 1929 musical Sunny Side Up, starring Janet Gaynor and Charles Farrell, who can't sing or dance but who cares, they're so charming. It has a great score -- several of the songs are now standards -- and it's one of the very first film musicals that integrated song and dance into an original story, rather than being a revue or a film of a Broadway show. It was a huge hit back in 1929 and I can certainly see why.

Newly restored print of the western Jubal, starring Glenn Ford, Ernest Borgnine and Rod Steiger. This had been filmed in Eastmancolor and had faded badly but now with digital tools they were finally able to restore it. Great movie. Borgnine was there too and talked about making the movie and told other stories about his many years in films. He's still a very busy actor though he's in his 90s now.

Two Harold Lloyd films, An Eastern Westerner and Safety Last, with live musical accompaniment by the Robert Israel Orchestra. I've loved Israel's silent movie music for years so it was a special treat to see (and hear) him and his colleagues live.