Metacritic reviews

Edmund Goulding’s Nightmare Alley viscerally understands the lurid appeal of carnivals and acts of illusion.

Scripter Jules Furthman and Director Edmund Goulding have steered a middle course, now & then crudely but on the whole with tact, skill and power.

Though perhaps it tries too hard to be 'respectable' and downplays its tawdry trash vulgarity a little too much (the film is tough, but William Lindsay Gresham's superb novel is even tougher), this is still a mean, moody, and well-nigh magnificent melodrama.

It's an authentically bilious look at the world and its morals as Tyrone Power, taking decisive strides from the standard romantic hero roles he had been typecast in, rises from a travelling carnival mind-reading act to a high society shown to be even more corrupt.

Nightmare Alley is a harsh, brutal story [based on the novel by William Lindsay Gresham] told with the sharp clarity of an etching.

It's a one-of-a-kind experience -- dark, bleak, twisted carnival noir.

As much EC comic as noir, Nightmare Alley is strong on atmosphere (thanks to Lee Garmes’ shadowy cinematography) and performances (particularly Joan Blondell, as fellow mind reader Zeena), but doesn’t quite deliver on its lurid pulp premise.

Carefully constructing Power's rise and fall, director Goulding is merciless in his inspection of a character who is rotten through and through

A fascinating anomaly.

Despite some fine and intense acting by Mr. Power and others, this film traverses distateful dramatic ground and only rarely does it achieve any substance as entertainment.