The anti-communist hysteria that infected post-war America has provided fodder for many a Hollywood filmmaker. Now Dead Silence shines the light on a little-known sidebar to that infamous era. At a time when “naming names” was the only way to avoid industry blacklists, many of the nation's top ventriloquists saved their own hides by selling out their wooden partners. Dead Silence does a remarkable job of chronicling these shameless acts of self-preservation, blaming not just the puppet masters, but Americans-at-large who, to this day, pretend not to notice when a ventriloquist's lips move.
The film begins in 1952 when Edgar Bergen (Donnie Wahlberg) is hauled before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). Threatened with the loss of his livelihood, Bergen outs his wooden partner, Charlie McCarthy, as a labor organizer and Stalinist sympathizer. In a surprise turn, a recalcitrant McCarthy appears on Bergen's lap and begs the committee's forgiveness. McCarthy then announces that he has documents proving his colleague Mortimer Snerd traveled extensively through Soviet controlled Eastern Europe. This seminal act of what came to be known as “Charlie McCarthyism” served as prologue to an entire decade of friend turning on wooden friend.
Ventriloquists soon learned to create ancillary dummies for the express purpose of taking the fall. When Paul Winchell (Ryan Kwanten) was brought to testify, he saved his own hide along with partner Jerry Mahoney by offering the committee Knucklehead Smiff's head on a silver platter (literally - the silver platter now resides in the Smithsonian, though the head suffered from dry rot and was composted in 1974). Shari Lewis (Amber Valletta) kept sock-partner Lamb Chop out of the committee's spin cycle by accusing Hush Puppy of leading a group of Tarzana-based Trotsky-ites.
Dead Silence comes close to being an overwrought melodrama, yet the film ultimately succeeds by delivering a message bound to resonate with modern audiences. The world is once again awash in paranoia. As civil liberties are legislated away, Americans need to question the talking heads that fill the TV screen. On whose lap does the President sit? Whose hand controls that jawboning Senator? It is a testimony to how far we've come that our greatest living ventriloquist team is Willie Tyler and Lester, but Dead Silence reminds us of how far we have yet to go, demonstrating that witty dialogue between man and mahogany is but one small component of a healthy democracy.
Subscribe to Feed
