Von Stroheim's first appearance in a talkie had him playing opposite a puppet. As the Great Gabbo-famous ventriloquist, ego-maniac, and spurned lover-Von Stroheim ushered in the long line of crabby ventriloquists who live and can only express affection through their wooden alter-egos. This is considered one of Von Stroheim's great performances, but Gabbo has other pleasures of a campier kind. Cheaply produced for Sono-Art, a poverty-row independent, the film's technical crudities were abetted by lunatic dance numbers, notably the "Web of Love" with Don Douglas and Betty Compson as a spider and fly surrounded by a swarm of writhing chorus girls impersonating terrorized insects. The film long ago passed into cult status as the epitome of early talkie strangeness. After Gabbo, director James Cruze, like Stroheim, saw his career crash in the talkies. Writer Ben Hecht, on the other hand, was just warming up.-Russell Merritt