Second Sight, Out 23 March on Blu-ray

‘Did ya knock ’em dead, Corky?’ 

Before the Puppet Master, before Chucky, there was Fats. A welcome release on Blu-ray for this 1978 classic of ventriloquism terror – and how often do you get to say those words! I for one fondly recall being scared out of my wits as a kid by this movie, and have only watched it a couple of times over the years, so I was curious myself to see how it holds up…

Struggling magician, Corky (Anthony Hopkins, best known for his later Oscar-winning turn as Hannibal Lecter), resorts to drastic measures to get on in the business – utilising his skills as a ventriloquist, and a dummy named Fats. Attracting the attention of agent Ben Greene (Burgess Meredith), he soon finds himself with a TV deal; as Fats himself says, ‘We’re gonna be a star!’ The only problem? Corky refuses to have the medical the studio insists on, fleeing instead to his childhood neighbourhood. He looks up his schoolboy crush, Peggy (Ann-Margaret, most recently seen in The Kominsky Method), and rents her cabin by the lake.

Unhappy with her life and her marriage, to overbearing brute Duke (the late Ed Lauter from Shameless), she finds herself drawn to Corky, and he to her. But their affair doesn’t go down so well with Fats, who is beginning to become a person in his own right – even ordering his ‘owner’ around. As Corky begins to unravel, and they’re found by Ben, it can only end badly, especially as the line between man and dummy is blurring. Will Corky ever be able to live a normal life with his one, true love?

Based on his own novel, Marathon Man scribe William Goldman delivers a powerful script that’s as fascinating and tragic as it is horrific. Exploring the real-life phenomenon that many ventriloquists experience from time to time, spontaneous schizophrenia – where a dummy suddenly says something that surprises them – Goldman takes his time with Corky’s descent into madness, then really turns on the jets towards the end. The result is agonising suspense of the highest order, only enhanced by Richard Attenborough’s masterful direction and Jerry Goldsmith’s score. The acting support is top-notch, as you’d expect from the likes of Ann-Margaret and Meredith, but it is Hopkins’ turn (or should I say Fats’) that steals the show. Totally believable, mainly because he learned both magic and ventriloquism – even practising between takes – he sells the tale in a way that makes it almost documentary in nature. And as for those close-ups of Fats looking through windows or sitting on chairs just staring… get ready for those hairs to stand up on the back of your neck.

There are some terrific extras here as well, beginning with the 2006 featurette Screenwriting for Dummies, in which Goldman reminisces about the making of the movie (‘I never know why people buy what they buy of mine… Nobody knows anything, that’s true of the film business.’). It’s amazing to hear about the ups and downs of the production: original director Norman Jewison leaving; Richard Attenborough coming on board, and bringing along Hopkins from A Bridge Too Far (‘If you haven’t got someone who can play both warm and neurotic, you’re in very deep shit.’)… And also his favourite scene, where Ben Greene catches Corky arguing with Fats.

Then there’s another one focusing on cinematographer Victor J. Kemper, where he reveals that Hopkins’ shadows were incredibly hard to get right – because he was trying to make them look like Fats – and that after a week on set, all the crew were also treating the dummy like a person. While Fats and Friends is an equally mesmerising trip through the history of ventriloquism with Dennis Alwood, who helped the filmmakers get those aspects of the profession right. His dummy Dudley was apparently going to be the Fats character, until the decision was made to make it look more like Hopkins (and indeed, those scenes where actor and dummy are wearing the same clothes are incredibly unnerving). This resemblance was something that Hopkins didn’t like at all to begin with, phoning Alwood at 3am to say, ‘Come take this dummy away, it’s freaking me out!’. The interviews with Hopkins himself conducted around the time of release are sadly quite short (one done for radio, which is married with visual outtakes from the movie, and a bizarre Spanish one with no subtitles), and Ann-Margret’s make-up tests don’t really add anything to the mix. But all in all, this is a wonderfully presented package of an essential chiller. ‘Fan-f***ing-tastic!’

Verdict: ‘Fats says, “Get a knife!”’ 10/10

Paul Kane

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