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Arts patron Mrs. Claypool (Margaret Dumont) intends to pay pompous Opera Star Lassparri $1,00 per performance. Hey, maybe that's why they call it grand opera! This is grand comedy, too, as Groucho, Chico, and Harpo cram a ship's stateroom and more with wall-to-wall gags, one-liners, musical riffs and two hard-boiled eggs -- all while skewering Lassparri's schemes and helping two young hopefuls (Kitty Carlisle and Allan Jones) get a break. to save the opera, our heroes must first destroy it. They must also gain ocean passage as stowaways, pull the wool (if not the beards) over the eyes of city hall, shred legal mumbo-jumbo down to a sanity clause, pester dowager Claypool and unleash so much glee that many say this is the best Marx Brothers movie. Seeing is believing.

Description

Darkness lurks behind the bright lights of a traveling carnival in one of the most haunting and perverse film noirs of the 1940s. Adapted from the scandalous best seller by William Lindsay Gresham, Nightmare Alley gave Tyrone Power a chance to subvert his matinee-idol image with a ruthless performance as Stan Carlisle, a small-time carny whose unctuous charm propels him to fame as a charlatan spiritualist, but whose unchecked ambition leads him down a path of moral degradation and self-destruction. Although its strange, sordid atmosphere shocked contemporary audiences, this long difficult-to-see reflection of postwar angst has now taken its place as one of the defining noirs of its era—a fate-fueled downward slide into existential oblivion. BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES • New 4K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack • Audio commentary from 2005 featuring film historians James Ursini and Alain Silver • New interview with critic Imogen Sara Smith • New interview with performer and historian Todd Robbins • Interview from 2007 with actor Coleen Gray • Audio excerpt of a 1971 interview with Henry King in which the filmmaker discusses actor Tyrone Power • Trailer • English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing • PLUS: An essay by film critic and screenwriter Kim Morgan