Guillermo Del Toro’s brilliant tale of greed, seduction and paranormal intrigue is a heck of a picture. Nightmare Alley is easily one of the few films released this year that begged repeated watches. In addition to the regular color version of the film, Del Toro also briefly released a black and white version of the movie into theaters. It was a very limited window and sadly, I missed it as I’m sure a lot of you did. Well, y’all good news. The black and white version of Nightmare Alley is coming to Hulu later this month.
This isn’t a fly by the seat pants move either. Del Toro actually planned on releasing the film in black and white very early on. This move was of course meant to match up with 1947’s Edmund Goulding release of the original Nightmare Alley.
The synopsis for Del Toro’s Nightmare Alley goes like this:
In 1940s New York, down-on-his-luck Stanton Carlisle endears himself to a clairvoyant and her mentalist husband at a traveling carnival. Using newly acquired knowledge, Carlisle crafts a golden ticket to success by swindling the elite and wealthy. Hoping for a big score, he soon hatches a scheme to con a dangerous tycoon with help from a mysterious psychologist who might be his most formidable opponent yet.
Del Toro’s film looks fantastic in color. A lot of its moving parts are made up of colorful set pieces. It will be interesting to see how all of this translates to his monochrome version. We will have to wait and see. I’m going to take a guess and say that the scenes between Lilith and Stanton in office, with snow falling just outside the window is going to be the high point of beauty for the black and white.
Nightmare Alley in black and white arrives on Hulu beginning April 25.
