Devil Doll is a 1964 British horror film directed and produced by Lindsay Shonteff and starring Bryant Haliday, William Sylvester and Yvonne Romain.
American reporter Mark English is assigned a story on Vorelli, and solicits his girlfriend Marianne Horn, a wealthy heiress, to go with him to another show.
Mark, wanting a closer look at Hugo to determine how this trick is performed, gets Marianne to invite Vorelli to her aunt's charity ball.
Mark secretly examines Hugo, and finds he is a simple dummy, without clockwork mechanisms, a space for an operator, or any other feature that might allow him to walk on his own.
The death was ruled an accident, and no one believed Mercedes's story, despite a theatre worker testifying he saw the dummy move immediately after Hugo screamed in pain.
Vorelli confides to Hugo that he plans to marry Marianne in Spain and transfer her spirit into another doll before letting her body die and inheriting her wealth.
[4] Sidney J. Furie was originally scheduled to direct, but was offered a more prestigious film, so he recommended his fellow Canadian Lindsay Shonteff.
[6] The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote: "Shot almost entirely in close-up, and with the action highlights reduced to a messy jumble of shock-cuts, this is a very pedestrian affair in which the script seems rather surprised at itself and Bryant Halliday plays the leading role on a single note of staring-eyed monotony.
The idea of a human personality being transferred into a wooden dummy is an odd-shaped pill to swallow in any circumstances and the director here never goes fast enough to sever the bonds of disbelief, the result is that the macabre goings-on never generate quite the tension they should.
William Sylvester does a workmanlike job as Mark and Bryant Halliday wears a beard and a burning glance to melodramatic effect, whilst Yvonne Romaine supplies the feminine interest.
"[8] Variety wrote: "This slow-paced pic never comes up to its title in the way of shocks, thrills, scares, sex or other dividends for meller regulars.
Filmed in England, its gimmick – a ventriloquial dummy’s revenge on his manipulator – has been done before and better by Cavalcanti and Michael Redgrave in a real horror classic – Dead of Night – and The Great Gabbo of 1929. ...
Halliday, however, burdened with a messy beard and one expression, the hypnotic stare, depends on his resonant voice to make the role credible.
[11] Reviewing the film for Cinefantastique, Steve Biodrowski wrote: "Although deliberately created to replicate the eerie quality of the ventriloquist’s dummy episode from Dead of Night (1945), this black-and-white English production works tolerably well as a crude rip-off, thanks to a creepy dummy and an even creepier performance from Haliday as The Great Vorelli.