Guest
Available on DVD from Tyrone Power -- cast against type at his own insistence -- gives the performance of his life as handsome scumbag / carnival barker / conman Stanton Carlisle. He seduces fellow sideshow artiste Mademoiselle Zeena (Joan Blondell) to learn the secret of the once-lucrative mind-reading act she performed with her alcoholic husband (Ian Keith), Carlisle, a “born mentalist“, secures the secret method and sets off with his new carnie wife, Molly (Coleen Grey) to milk the big time as a spiritualist in Chicago. As Carlisle's success grows, it's only a matter of time before his greed -- and twisted involvement with femme fatale psychoanalyst Lilith Ritter (Helen Walker) -- bring his world crashing down around him. Based on William Lindsay Gresham's book of he same name, scripted by the formidable Jules Furthman (The Big Sleep, Rio Bravo) and reflecting the preoccupations of its drug and alcohol-abusing, orgy-frequenting director Edmund G
