SmugKitZine Tied for the best movie I have ever seen

Phonearl Good start, but then it gets ruined

Freaktana A Major Disappointment

AutCuddly Great movie! If you want to be entertained and have a few good laughs, see this movie. The music is also very good,

bkoganbing As director and actor Erich Von Stroheim did some very weird films and The Great Gabbo is certainly one of them. In this Von Stroheim is a star attraction in a Ziegfeld Follies type stage review and he is fixated on Betty Compson who used to be his assistant in his act, but walked out on him because he treated her shabbily.Now she is keeping company with Donald Douglas a young hoofer in the show. He's actually upset as well with her interest in Von Stroheim.In a way it's hard to review this because just the name of Erich Von Stroheim brings up images of barbaric cruelty show on the screen. The name alone is sufficient to conjure up horrible images.So Von Stroheim wants to set up house with her and his dummy Otto. As in most ventriloquist stories the dummy functions as an alter ego.All this with the backdrop of a Ziegfeld type show. That was interesting and like Glorifying The American Girl, The Great Gabbo is a nice filmed record of what these shows were like on stage. Although Von Stroheim is always interesting, The Great Gabbo's best value is as a record of the type musical revue so popular back then.

Michael_Elliott Great Gabbo, The (1929) ** (out of 4)Early talkie has Erich von Stroheim playing Gabbo, a ventriloquist who breaks free from his assistant and then finds huge success on his own with his dummy Otto. After his success he runs into his assistant again who by this time is also famous and Gabbo thinks he can control her like he did when they first started. This here is a pretty confusing movie because it's not quite sure what it wants to do. The stuff with the dummy controlling Gabbo might make you expect a horror movie but these elements are very few. We have the personal drama of the assistant and her new husband. We have some plot about Gabbo being crazy. Then, for some unknown reason, the final thirty-minutes pretty much gets away from the Gabbo story and we get some incredibly long music numbers but more on them in a bit. There's not too much plot here but what little there is seems to come and go as the movie goes along as we switch gears so many times that it's pretty hard to follow what the filmmakers are trying to do. The best thing about the movie and the only real reason to watch it is for the performance of von Stroheim who is perfectly wicked in the role. He gives an incredibly strong performance here and you can't help but feel the hatred of his character as it seems to be really coming out of the actor. I'm sure this period in his life wasn't the greatest so this role gave him a chance to really let out some steam. Betty Compson, who appeared in THE DOCKS OF NEW YORK, is pretty good in her role as well but the screenplay gives her a lot less to do and doesn't have nearly as flashy of a role. I'm really not sure where the music numbers come from but I'm going to guess they were added after talkies became popular and Musicals started bringing people in. The film is pretty much doing its own thing when out of no where these dance sequences come up and they'll all incredibly bad, poorly staged and most of the time the voices are so high-pitched that you'll be wishing you were watching a silent. There's one incredibly strange one where the dancers are flies stuck in a spider web that's so bizarre it's pretty much a must-see. The sound quality here is certainly among the best I've heard from this era and considering how small the budget was I'm curious how they managed to do this.

drednm Bizarre in the extreme but a highly entertaining film about a mad ventriloquist and the woman who loves him.Erich von Stroheim makes his talkie debut as the spooky/mad ventriloquist who often speaks through his dummy (Otto) and eventually goes totally mad. Betty Compson plays his harried assistant who is finally driven away through his cruelty and madness. But they meet up again 2 years later when von Stroheim has become a star.We get several scenes about the masochistic relationship between the stars played out against the background of a big New York revue. There are several terrific 20s songs in this films and one unforgettable production number with Compson and Donald Douglas as a fly and spider and perched on a giant web.The film also boasts the zippy Marjorie Kane who intros "That New Step." Von Stroheim is good and has a surprisingly light accent, but Compson steals the show as the pathetic assistant who can't understand him. She also gets to sing "I'm in Love with You" and adds one more talent to her resume of skills. Compson was also a concert violinist (see INSIDE THE LINES).Compson and von Stroheim are excellent and the whole production becomes more and more surreal as it goes on. Certainly worth a look even if one number is missing (the "Ga Ga Bird") as are the Technicolor sequences. The whole film is black and white. The number "Every Now and Then" is tops.Compson was one of the busiest actresses in Hollyword during the late 20s and early 30s.... she's a gem.

claudecat Though I agree with previous reviewers' comments about the good performances turned in by Erich Von Stroheim and Betty Compson, I thought the movie was disappointing overall. There isn't really much of a story, the dramatic scenes are often slow, and the rather bizarre musical numbers are poorly integrated into the plot. I'm not sure why this movie isn't classified as a musical, though; it has as many numbers as "42nd Street" and other similar titles from about the same period. Unfortunately, as a previous reviewer said, these scenes are not as creatively done as those by Busby Berkeley; the choreography is often unappealing, and the dancers don't look very well-rehearsed, though there are some bright spots.Interestingly, the contemporary "Variety" review mentioned a color sequence in the film, which was not present on the Video Yesteryear VHS copy I watched. I wonder if this piece is lost, or available on other editions?