Hugo is No Dummy

What scares you? Circus clowns, graveyards at night, enclosed spaces, bats ? For me, ventriloquist dummies are the stuff of nightmares and some of my favorite spine-tinglers are Dead of Night, the 1945 British horror anthology film featuring the “Ventriloquist’s Dummy” segment with Michael Redgrave, and “The Dummy,” a 1962 episode from The Twilight Zone starring Cliff Robertson as an unhinged ventriloquist…or is he? Lesser known but just as potent is a creepy little British B-movie entitled Devil Doll (1964), which is ideal viewing for Halloween or anytime.

Cliff Robertson as a disturbed ventriloquist in the TV episode “The Dummy” (1962) on THE TWILIGHT ZONE.
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Those Men and Women in White

What could be a more ideal setting than a hospital to explore countless dramatic scenarios, character relationships and potentially hot-button topical issues that affect both the public and the medical community? With each decade new variations on the medical drama formula emerge and one of the most successful films in this genre in the early sixties was The Interns (1962).  

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Love Hurts

Joan Crawford and Cliff Robertson have a traumatic love affair in Autumn Leaves (1956).

Joan Crawford and Cliff Robertson have a traumatic love affair in Autumn Leaves (1956).

In 1956 directed Robert Aldrich surprised everyone by trying his hand at a “woman’s picture,” a melodramatic soap opera that on the surface appeared to be a complete departure from his previous work which included two westerns (Apache, Vera Cruz), a film noir (Kiss Me Deadly) and a drama (The Big Knife), whose emotional volatility equals the physical violence in the three preceding films.  Continue reading