Devil Doll (1964)

By CinemaSerf

I remember being terrified of this when I saw it as child. "The Great Vorelli" (Bryant Haliday) is a successful, but distinctly dodgy looking, ventriloquist with his puppet "Hugo". When he meets the wealthy "Marianne" (Yvonne Romain) he sets his heart on her fortune, and to that end manages to render her comatose. Her journalist boyfriend "Mark" (William Sylvester) is suspicious and begins to investigate. These enquiries soon reveal that the entertainer's past is somewhat murky - made more so when his girlfriend "Magda" is found dead, and that's not the first corpse associated with the man. Thus far, the film is actually quite menacingly entertaining. The girl awakes from her coma, decides to marry "Vorelli" and it is soon clear that "Hugo" might not be quite as much of a dummy as his plastic exterior suggests, This is when the suspense drains away; the story loses it's way, becomes way too dialogue heavy and the ending is really weak and inconclusive. Haliday is quite effective, but the rest of the cast really don't deliver - lots of hysterics from them and the violins in the orchestra just don't cut it. The years haven't been kind to the sense of jeopardy here - pity.