The Great Gabbo

Erich Von Stroheim, Stroheimin' out. World's angriest Eastern European. But the reason to watch it is, this dummy FREAKED ME OUT. Watch it below or download it here (on the left) The only psychology is Gabbo's tranferrence to his dummy Otto, manifesting bipolarity. No supernatural nuthin'. The hidden secret about this film is that it's a musical, replete with pre-Hays outfits and Zeigfeld like crowds of cast members, wherein the numbers performed get pretty trippy. The climax is wonderfully executed using the special effects of the day, bipack and dissolves. Stroheim while not actually doing the ventriloqism, performs beautifully with the dummy.

Dummy: Causin' My Childhood Shiverin' Shit Fit

Lex10 here from GlyphJockey.

Let's talk about something relating to Arthur's earlier post about ventriloquist dummies- a recurring dream that occurred during my early childhood, the progenitor of which was the movie Dead of Night seen on television. What the fuck was my family thinking?!?! I was wee !!

It scarred me because prior to seeing it, it loved ventriloquist dummies, because it was a toy that came to life. But after Dead of Night, I knew it could all go wrong.....seriously, biting you wrong.

Well, here goes, here's the dream: I'm in my living room, playing with probably some Marx brand toys, when Mortimer Snerd enters the room. (Pretty sure that Mortimer was based on John Finnegan, the son of my Mother's friend, who was, in retrospect, a half-wit, and spent about 95% of the time I was sequestered with him beating on me, based on meaningless unconnected premises.)

Snerd- that fucker....

He approaches me in an attempt to bite me, in my mind, to death. I try to run but can't - it's all slow motion. Molasses. Anaerobic. Occasionally, during recurrences, I make it to my parent's room, but they do not wake up - it's like they're drugged and as a result I'm pretty much fucked - let Mortimer's biting commence. Once he's in bite proximity, everything swirls into a negative ecstasy of terror approximating the opposite of nirvana, and I wake up in a little tiny kid cold sweat, chest pumping, anxiety populating every breath of the air I gasped.

So, uh, here's the segment from the film in it's entirety. I used Google Video, because YouTube's weak ass policy states 10 minutes or less, and this runs about 23, so I'd've had to bust it into 3-

Enjoy:



Lastly, glad to be here......

Movies For Dummies

'The Unholy Three'


'The Great Gabbo'


'Magic'


I haven't got round to watching 'Black Devil Doll from Hell' yet, and I'm not sure if I ever will, so I'll leave it to IMDB to fill you in -

"The only reason to see this is for the unintentionally hilarious rape scene wherein a pious sister of the church is tied down to her bed and given a serious rodgering by an evil, horny ventriloquist's dummy with dreadlocks. The scene where he "orally pleasures" her will forever be burned into my memory, not only because if was silly beyond all human comprehension, but because his tongue looks like a popsicle stick. And, yes, we do get to see his, er...wood. Rent it, and fast forward to this scene. After seeing it, immediately remove the tape from your VCR and use it as a skeet shooting pigeon."

And this led me back to one of my favourite album covers...