This is a dark drama about a down and out magician/comedian, Charles "Corky" Withers [Hopkins], who is slowly dwindling away performing at sketchy bars to minimal crowds, but he boasts to his mentor, Merlin, that he has great attendance with tentatively active crowds. After his mentor passes, Withers creates a fantastic ventriloquist act with a dummy named Fats. His new gimmick catches the eye of a talent agent [Meredith], who persuades many producers to "Give the new kid a shot." But the problem is that Corky has a building inner fear with self doubt of being successful and is in terror of reaching for the stars. It's such a problem that he steps away from the limelight and returns to his hometown where he meets and falls for his old high school crush, Peggy Snow [Margret]. He rents a local cabin and tries to sort his feelings about success, using his dummy to try and find answers. But along the way, the dummy seems to guide Corky in the wrong direction, causing great harm to anyone who questions him or tries to help him.
THE GOOD - Crisp cinematography. Strong direction and a brilliant one-man performance by Hopkins. The addition of Ann-Margret was a nice touch for the time and Meredith's performance was starkly familiar with the "Micky" character from ROCKY [1975] that made his part extremely likeable and trustworthy. Location spotting was perfect for the production, giving the film a dark, dying feel to the whole film.
THE BAD - The movie plateaus too soon in my opinion. There is a desperate feel to make Corky seem too paranoid about his surroundings which forces Hopkins to perform the character with an explosive, bipolar fuel of instant anger that just seems over dramatic and drawn out at times. I'm not 100% sure the music fit the film, but it seems that the sound track was rushed an not thought-out well.
POSTMORTEM - This film was filmed with the use of one camera. Most of the scenes were shot in a "soap opera" style format used in the time of the 70's which forced the actors to perform at a higher level. Even though the scenes with dummy was creepy, I feel that the scenes were dumbed down for the audience, leaving some to speculate as to whether the dummy had a mind of its own or not. This is a classic film and something great to watch if you like watching realistic, psychotic, dramatic films.
⭐️⭐️⭐️💫 [3.5 of 5 Stars]
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