User Reviews

Okay, here goes. I'm in for the long haul (pun intended). Keep Talking Baby has never been reviewed on IMDb, and I can't and won't let that pass. I WILL review it, and I WILL meet the ten line minimum - somehow. So here goes: Eddie Constantine plays a ventriloquist falsely convicted of murder who escapes from prison. He must prove his innocence, and hopefully see the real perps get sent to jail in his place. He meets a young girl, gives her a huge stuffed bunny rabbit, and is off to the races with his plan for revenge. That's about it. Eddie is fun as usual, but the story is ridiculous and the ventriloquism angle is used sparingly - so sparingly, it's hard to understand why the filmmakers went with it. He could have been anything: butcher, baker, candlestick maker - but I guess they wanted him to throw his voice a couple of times in the movie. Not that that's really him performing the ventriloquism, either - at least I don't think it is! Nevertheless, the film is on balance an enjoyable hour and a half. Be warned that some reels of Something Weird's print are horribly washed out, but there are no better options available at present.

"Why Women Sin" director Guy Lefranc's cute, clever, but contrived crime thriller "Keep Talking Baby" casts tough guy Eddie Constantine as a ventriloquist on the run from not only the French police but also a murderous gang of thugs who traffick in opium. These thugs framed him for a murder he didn't commit. This nimble 91-minute cat & mouse epic unfolds with Jackson (Constantine of "Poison Ivy") receiving a 20-year stretch in the slammer because two eye witnesses testified against him. Miraculously, our resourceful hero manages to escape from prison after dark two days later! However, Lefranc provides no details about Jackson's escape, except that he leaped from a wall and fled down a dark street. Presumably, he could have deployed his ventriloquist skills to distract and confuse his jailors. Our desperate protagonist searches for the two witnesses that sealed his fate. Not surprisingly, organized crime coerced him into testifying against Jackson. Reluctantly, Delmar babbles about the mob that railroaded Jackson. Meanwhile, Francoise (Renée Cosima of "The Sinners") feared for the welfare of her own daughter. Naturally, the mobsters knock off Delmar. The buffoon had rushed to their headquarters and confessed his indiscretions about the smugglers with Jackson. Meantime, Francoise had the most to dread. The unscrupulous gangsters threatened to harm her precious adolescent daughter. Jackson and Francoise are leaving her apartment building when one of the villains spots them. The villain fires at Jackson, but Francoise hurls her body like a shield against him to absorb the bullets meant for our hero. Predictably, when the police arrive, all eye witnesses say Jackson was responsible for shooting Francoise. She lands in the hospital. Before Jackson has to leave her, she tells him to take care of her adolescent daughter Sophie. Lefranc and co-scenarists Roger Boussinot, Guilles Morris Dumoulin, and Yvon Samuel adapted Day Keene's novel. The hero in "Keep Talking Baby" is a sudden outcast of society. Essentially, condemned by his own society, a wrongly accused man must exonerate himself in the eyes of the law. In other words, he must prove his innocent. Alfred Hitchcock liked this premise. Resourceful at every turn but far from believable, "Keep Talking Baby" emerges as slick, synthetic, but imaginative from fade-in to fadeout as Jackson eludes the bad guys. Our hero spends most of his time with Francoise's daughter in tow with her huge stuff bunny rabbit. Meantime, an older detective doesn't believe in Jackson's guilt while the police commissioner is inclined to believe our hero represents a threat to society. Lefranc teamed up with Constantine again in "Laissez tirer les tireurs" (1964) for a more conventional secret agent saga.