Synopsis
One of Hollywood's earliest – and most peculiar – musicals,
The Great Gabbo stars
von Stroheim as an egotistical ventriloquist who casts a Svengali-like spell upon an ingenue (
Betty Compson), against a backdrop of singularly strange numbers (including "Icky" and the spider-and-fly-themed "Caught in a Web"). Director
James Cruze (
The Covered Wagon) allowed
von Stroheim to endow the character with his signature flourishes, resulting in a wicked cocktail of garish stage shows and Austro-Hungarian villainy that is a diabolical delight.