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| Michael Redgrave in Dead of Night. |
The difficulties inherent in injecting a distinct personality into a wooden dummy have caused identity problems for a number of movie ventriloquists. In the most chilling story in the classic anthology
Dead of Night (1945), ventriloquist Michael Redgrave went insane after becoming convinced that his foul-mouthed dummy Hugo was looking for a new partner. Anthony Hopkins gave a tour-de-force performance in 1978’s
Magic as another mentally-unstable ventriloquist taking murderous advice from a dummy with an apparent mind of its own. Another dummy named Hugo (an obvious reference to
Dead of Night) really did have a soul in the underrated 1964 fantasy
Devil Doll. Bryant Halliday starred as Hugo’s “partner,” a ventriloquist who has transferred the soul of his assistant into his dummy.
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| Charlie with Edgar Bergen. |
Aside from horror films, the most famous film ventriloquist remains Edgar Bergen. He enjoyed a prosperous career during the late 1930s accompanied by dummies Charlie McCarthy or Mortimer Snerd in comedies like
A Letter of Introduction (1938),
Charlie McCarthy, Detective, (1939) and the W.C. Fields vehicle
You Can’t Cheat an Honest Man (1939). He earned a special Academy Award in 1937 for his creation of Charlie McCarthy.
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| Danny Kaye in Knock on Wood. |
Major stars who have played ventriloquists include Erich von Stroheim in
The Great Gabbo (1929), Danny Kaye in
Knock on Wood (1954), and Lon Chaney in both the silent and talkie versions of
The Unholy Three (1925 and 1930). In 1984’s
Broadway Danny Rose, theater agent Woody Allen had a hard time finding employment for a stuttering ventriloquist.
Although it was a TV episode on
Alfred Hitchcock Presents, I feel compelled to mention "The Glass Eye." This haunting tale about a lonely woman and a ventriloquist starred Jessica Tandy and Tom Conway. It's highly recommended!
Here's a representative sample of classic movies that featured ventriloquists:
The Unholy Three (1925)
The Great Gabbo (1929)
A Letter of Introduction (1938)
The Unholy Three (1930)
You Can’t Cheat an Honest Man (1939)
Charlie McCarthy, Detective (1939)
Dead of Night (1945)
Knock on Wood (1954)
Stop! Look! And Laugh! (1960)
Hypnosis (aka
Dummy of Death) (1963)
Devil Doll (1964)
Magic (1978)
Broadway Danny Rose (1984)
When a Stranger Calls Back (1993 TVM)
Reprinted with the authors' permission from the
Encyclopedia of Film Themes, Settings and Series.
