818. Devil Doll (1964)

MST3K Central
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Trailer of Devil Doll (1964).

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Katt Shea on Devil Doll (1964).

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Trixie Dallas from Devil Doll (1964).

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818 Promo.

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Buxton Orr’s score to Devil Doll (1964).

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Devil Doll (1964) Colorized.

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Katt Shea? Like “writer of Stripped To Kill and Stripped To Kill 2” Katt Shea?

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Yes. She talks over the Devil Doll (1964) Trailer for Trailers From Hell.

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Indeed! And she knows of what she speaks!

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The thrust of the story is not as aimless as other experiments. The gloom of the plot propels ahead and assists the joking by doubling down not getting lost in itself.

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Butt Lady! Hugo’s ham! Hypnosis! Who knew a hypnotic ventriloquist act would be such a huge hit? And what an odd use of evil powers. I haven’t seen this one in a while, but this weekend’s stream should fix that when I’ve get the chance.

Happy cake day, by the way! :partying_face:

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The story of a ventriloquist being driven mad by a dummy that’s alive was done much better in the 1945 British horror anthology Dead of Night, which I highly recommend. H. G. Wells even wrote one of the screenplays! The makers of this film would have almost surely seen it because it was a very well-known horror film in the UK and they probably saw it.

EDIT: I just looked it up to see if it was on YouTube. Only clips. But guess what the doll in the film was named? Hugo.

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“Well that scene was going nowhere. Let’s try this one!”

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Vorelli was not driven mad by Hugo. We don’t get much insight into his inner workings, but his downfall is that he was a greedy sadist who derived pleasure from cruelly enslaving people just a bit more than he did gaining profit.

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The bonus features on the SHOUT! DVD has the director mention his awareness of previous films in the genre (including Dead of Night) but apparently this one was based on a magazine story utilizing the concept. :thinking:

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Definitely sleazy; the villain is a rapist.

The X-rated (that was the UK equivalent at the time to NC-17, with only those over 16 admitted) British version includes a woman doing a striptease under hypnosis and going topless. There are other topless scenes too.

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Then the magazine story was ripping off Dead of Night or it was a very convenient coincidence that both dummies were named Hugo.

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More likely both the magazine story and Dead of Night drew on the same pulp tradition of the evil puppet with the quirky name. :slightly_smiling_face:

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There was an actual Hugo in the '30s.

Very common in the early '60s. I do want to warn modern-day thrill-seekers, however, that these topless/strip scenes are stultifying. Never has nudity and prurience been so dull.

I haven’t seen the X-rated Devil Doll, but I’ve seen Ed Wood’s Orgy of the Dead and a few others from the era, and they are challenges to stay awake through. I assume it was because these guys were always skirting obscenity laws. Kind of like how they’d put doctors saying “Don’t do any of this stuff” at the front and back of these exploitation flicks to give the movie “socially redeeming value”.

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Thanks very much. I’ve been here a year already.

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