The traveling family in the original film is complex. Goulding’s direction features ensemble acting, which better fits the theatrical settings of the tent carnies. The first half of the film takes place in a world of live entertainment, and the actors dance off each other.
Both Mike Mazurki in the original film, and Ron Perlman in the remake, allow the strongman Bruno to bear the brunt of not being able to hold the family together, and arranging the shotgun marriage which tears it apart. Their roles are similar, and they bring an earthy class to both films.
Their relationships are shaded and tangled, but loving and protective
Del Toro focuses squarely on Cooper. It is his film. The other characters are brushed off into more isolated scenes to keep Carlisle in the spotlight. We are rooting for him as he and his wife Molly (Rooney Mara) run off to do nightclubs as a headlining spiritualist act. We worry when he promises wealthy clientele he can communicate with the dead, knowing spook shows are treacherous.
Power isn’t even always center stage in the framing of the original film. Stanton is figuratively relegated to the archetypal femme fatale of the era, climbing the ladder of success one woman at a time. Even as the original Stan is promising to make Molly (Coleen Gray) happy, he’s only got eyes for the future. He doesn’t see her. He only sees the money they’ll make Aisle.
The 1947 film adaptation was forced to limit Stanton and Zeena’s affair to a few arm kisses, a caress, and a visual distraction. The remake’s Zeena, an alleged medium and seer, is played by Toni Colette as more up front. She declares Stan is “easy on the eyes,” has a kind of panache, and one-tenth of a dollar only gets so much soft soap. She’s a little more wary of the new hire’s ambition than Blondell’s fortune teller, but cuts him some slack, mainly from the bottom of the deck.
Mazurki was a Hungarian wrestler before he became a reliable character actor, and Perlman is as likable and intimidating as his predecessor
The science of tarot reading is far more detailed and revered in the 1947 film. Blondell’s Zeena gives a full rundown on the cards, their placement, relation, and the significant variations on whether they are pulled by hand or land by fortuitous accident. The novel is laid out as a tarot spread, each chapter is named for a card in the Major Arcana. The ease with which these cards repeatedly foretell downfall in both films is a little too Hollywood, where the death card is always literal. Both Collette and Blondell’s Zeena genuinely believe in the power of the cards. The sideshow soothsayer may be a fake in everything else, but pentacles, swords, aces, and wands are a language to her.
In the original film, Zeena admits she’s “about as reliable as a two-dollar coronet,” but her belief in the tarot is so committed, no one questions her predictions until Stan accuses her of stacking the deck to con him. Nonetheless, the card gets under Stan’s skin, whether the deal is real or underhanded. He is powerless against its venerated status. Stan knows the cards will always tell the truth. He’s been trained to respect them. In the updated version, Stan dismissively flips the reversed Hanged Man over. “There, I fixed it,” he sneers.
In the 1947 film, Pete (Ian Keith), a one-time headliner now a broken drunk, is protective of his mentalist secrets, especially “The Code,” the system of words and correlative numbers he and Zeena use to read minds while blindfolded. The film follows noir fatalism, sees class as predetermined, and booze as the great leveler. Zeena and Pete made the big time but got kicked back down to the life of a traveling carnival, where they belong.
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