Featuring Jodie Foster, Robbie Robertson (lead guitarist and songwriter for The Band, who appeared in The Last Waltz), and Gary Busey (The Buddy Holly Story), Carny follows in a tradition of bizarre carnival films that includes Nightmare Alley (1947) and Tod Browning's Freaks (1932), among others. Carny made Andrew Sarris' list of the year's most interesting films, and is described by the East Bay Express's Naomi Wise as “a triumph of images over incidents.... It's a film for everyone who loves Nightmare Alley, but regrets the lack of filthiness in that film; for everyone who's ever pushed a still camera to the utmost F-stop and slowest speed to film the neon lights of a carnival turning on at twilight in some godforsaken little Southern town; for everyone who still believes in the magic of those neons.” Carny is the ambitious project of documentary filmmaker Robert Kaylor, whose interest in carnival ambiance and characters grew from a documentary short he made at a Georgia State Fair carnival.