The Great Gabbo

“Hated by all-his real soul spoke through the lips of a lifeless dummy”

Onstage, the ventriloquist Gabbo (Erich von Stroheim) says nothing his wooden dummy Otto doesn't say first, and offstage Gabbo has little else to say at all. James Cruze directs this 1929 musical drama, with Betty Compson as Mary, the assistant who works beside him. Gabbo leans harder on Otto with every show, and what he stands to lose is his own voice, and then his hold on himself.