A Film Canon

This haunting film transfers noir from an urban to fairground topography, such that shadow-play becomes the product of tents, ferris wheels, caravans and cages, and fatality is given a distinctly supernatural edge, in the form of the tarot cards that map out the narrative trajectory, as well as the crystal balls that eventually become indistinguishable from the bottles of gin that play such a prominent part in it. It makes sense, then, that the central scam - the collaboration between a mentalist (Tyrone Power) and a psychologist (Helen Walker) - should be increasingly figured as an act of heterodoxy, rather than mere deception - an incursion on the natural order of things - as evinced in the mentalist's gradual adoption of a priest-like persona that brings his performances ever closer to perverse sermons, and culminates with his orchestration of an 'apparition' for an important politician, in exchange for funding for his own tabernacle. In the process, Goulding makes exquisite use of the geek - a carnival performer of abject acts - both as a figure for male disempowerment, and as the common denominator in a mileu that is shifting in two noticeable ways - from barbaric to sanitised fairground practises (most notable in the phasing out of electrocution acts), and from the carnies themselves to a new kind of drifter, variously figured as railroad jumpers, hitchers and, ultimately, the inhabitants of the rural universe against which the film takes place, and which increasingly partakes of the dystopian overtones of the noir metropolis. Hence the key to the scam - encoding information in minor, odd inflections of pronunciation - which represents the transition from naturalised, rural language to the affected, hard-boiled register of this imminent cityscape.