- For the 1936 MGM film directed by Tod Browning, see The Devil-Doll.
Devil Doll (1964) is a horror film about an evil ventriloquist, "The Great Vorelli", and his dummy Hugo. Decades after its initial release, it was featured on a 1997 episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000.
Plot
Devil Doll begins with a performance by Vorelli (Bryant Haliday) and Hugo before a packed London audience. There is an apparent tension between the ventriloquist and his dummy. The following night, for another portion of his act, Vorelli invites a member of his audience, Marianne Horn (Yvonne Romain), onto the stage and succeeds in hypnotizing her and making her dance. Horn is left fascinated by Vorelli, and meets again with him subsequently, before falling into a strange semi-coma. Her boyfriend, Mark English (William Sylvester), a newspaper reporter, is puzzled by her new fixation on this bearded ventriloquist and her declining health and slowly begins to investigate the murky past of the Great Vorelli.
Vorelli's choice of Horn is no accident; he knows that she is an heiress and he seeks to seduce her and steal her fortune. It is revealed that Hugo is no mere dummy—in fact, Vorelli has transferred the soul of an unfortunate assistant into the body of a regular dummy. He plans to transfer Marianne's soul into the body of a female dummy, thereby giving Hugo a playmate. Vorelli's present assistant, the leggy Magda (Sandra Dorne), objects to his plan, but Vorelli manipulates the very angry Hugo into killing her.
Hugo's rage has been brewing for some time now. During performances and when they are by themselves, Vorelli taunts him, calling him ugly and stupid, and telling him that he can never eat ham or drink wine. Hugo's resentment eventually bubbles over, and he attacks Vorelli. After a pitched battle between ventriloquist and dummy, Vorelli seemingly succeeds in wrestling the irate Hugo back into his cage just as Mark English (who has spent the film doing very little) enters the room. Speaking with Hugo's voice, Vorelli tells him that everything is all right—he (Hugo) has now seized possession of Vorelli's body. (Somehow) Speaking from Hugo's body, Vorelli protests this new turn of events as the film ends.
Mystery Science Theater 3000
Devil Doll was ridiculed in an October 1997 episode of movie-mocking television comedy series Mystery Science Theater 3000. Mike Nelson and his robot friends made considerable light of Vorelli's bizarre relationship with Hugo, the apparent uselessness of the film's nominal hero, and the general bleakness of the film. Paul Chaplin of the MST3K cast commented: "There's a real darkness to this movie, too. You can't see a thing. It's so bad I don't feel like talking about it anymore." [1]
Notable cast
Bryant Haliday was one of the founders of the noted film distribution company Janus Films. He would later appear in another MST3K'ed film, The Projected Man. William Sylvester and Alan Gifford both later appeared in the critically-acclaimed film 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968).
Aspects of Production
Frederick E. Smith wrote the original story for London Mystery Magazine in 1951, earning £10 for it. He said that one of the conditions of cashing his cheque was that he had surrendered any rights of resale of the story. [2]
Sidney J. Furie was originally scheduled to direct but was offered a more prestigious film, so he recommended his fellow Canadian Lindsay Shonteff. Richard Gordon later said Furie advised Shonteff throughout the making of the film.[3] Shonteff had to re-edit the horror tale of a ventriloquist's dummy to avoid an X rating from the British Board of Film Censors.
References
- ^ Episode 818- Devil Doll
- ^ Smith, Frederick E. Devil Doll DVD notes
- ^ Weaver, Tom Return of the B Science Fiction and Horror Movies: The Mutant Melding of Two Classic Interviews 1999 McFarland & Co
External links
