Director Rob Margolies’s The Dummy Detective, written by Jonathan Geffner, is a whodunit mystery noir filled with twists and an assortment of quirky characters. Detective Van Trillo (Jonathan Geffner) is performing his ventriloquist act one night when he encounters a lady in red, Chloe Lake (Deborah Twiss). Chloe needs help as her mother has just been murdered. Trillo is a unique detective, using his dummies as partners in crime-busting. The dummies consist of Sam Suede, who is the quintessential hardboiled detective, goofy country bumpkinex, and Mrs. Levinsky, a Jewish grandmother type. Sometimes he hallucinates and talks to his dummies when analyzing a case.
To escape her troubles, Lake stays at an inn run by eccentric proprietor, Harriet Hubbard (Sean Young). Hubbard is also a famous murder mystery novelist and has a sixth sense for the macabre. A wealthy couple, Archibald (David Lambert) and Hortense Grimsly (Kristin Samuelson), must stay at the inn after their car breaks down. Hortense also has her handsome personal assistant, Dr. Cox (Hari Bhaskar), to assist with her medical needs. Our cast of suspects would not be complete without Elliot Black (Ed Altman), an ex-ventriloquist with a mysterious past, who is haunted by the actions of his dummy, Pinky.
“Detective Van Trillo is performing his ventriloquist act one night when he encounters a lady in red…”
Strangely, on the same day that the Grimslys and Cox arrive, Lake’s pet cat is mysteriously killed. Lake desperately wants Detective Trillo to help her, but he is reluctant. After Hubbard serves meat pies for dinner, Archibald Grimsly is bludgeoned and killed. Trillo and his dummies arrive at the right time, just as the murder spree ramps up. One of his first suspects is Dr. Cox, who is cuddling up to Hortense for her money. He has connections to a criminal gang, the Scalawags. This gang was notoriously involved in a heist at the Grimsly bank. As Trillo is focused on his case, Lake tries to seduce him. When Elliot Black is confronted, he tries to mess with Trillo’s mind by revealing they both share a cursed connection to ventriloquism. How will this case be solved? Is Chloe Lake hiding a family secret?
With The Dummy Detective, Margolies and his crew capture the convoluted and pulpy nature of a noir murder-mystery. It helps that Geffner wrote a script with the key aspects of noir. He utilizes introspective psychology, adultery, the chameleon nature of a femme fatale, interwoven backstories, and black comedy. All these elements blend with the absurdity of ventriloquist dummies. This film will absolutely entertain fans of film noir. Geffner gets the language, tone, and archetypes of this genre right. I was impressed with the confrontation scene between Trillo and Black; it delved into the fatalistic elements with ease. Fatalism has been a key part of noir, as seen in classics like Murder My Sweet and Somewhere in the Night. The film concludes with a subtle tribute to Billy Wilder’s Double Indemnity.
Juri Beythien’s cinematography is dreamy, expressionist, and kinetic. Justin Arbabi’s smooth editing goes hand-in-hand with the dynamic camerawork. The costume design by Montgomery Frazier leans into the mid-20th-century aspects of noir. His femme fatale costume, in particular, shines. Everyone in the cast plays their part to a T. Geffner is an amazing ventriloquist and actor. Sean Young carries the film with her bubbly performance, stealing many scenes.
Anyone who loves a good mystery and the crime genre will be thoroughly entertained by The Dummy Detective. It has humor and surprising plot twists, alongside a great cast! This is a must-see for noir fans. Just keep an eye out for those sneaky femme fatales…
"…has humor and surprising plot twists..."
