Devil Doll (1964)

A magician (Bryant Haliday) dazzles audiences with his mastery of hypnosis and his strange ventriloquist dummy called Hugo. Determined to find out his method of controlling the dummy, a journalist (William Sylvester) begins a covert investigation. Directed by Lindsay Shonteff (THE MILLION EYES OF SUMURU). The theme of a ventriloquist being controlled by his dummy creation has resulted in some fine to decent creations, the most notable being the Michael Redgrave sequence in DEAD OF NIGHT (1946). But there's also MAGIC (1978) with Anthony Hopkins and a TWILIGHT ZONE episode called THE DUMMY (1962) with Cliff Robertson. This one is rather unusual in that the hapless ventriloquist is not controlled by his evil dummy but rather the "dummy" is the victim while the ventriloquist is the evil one. Although often needlessly slow in its narrative (and Sylvester's dull reporter doesn't help), it holds your attention long enough to get you through the "twist" finale. Horror fans should check it out. With Yvonne Romain and Sandra Dorne.