MovieChat Forums > Follow Me Quietly (1949) Discussion > Mannequin in the office

Mannequin in the office

posted 11 years ago by JonathanMelville
4 replies | jump to latest

Can anyone explain what was going on in the office scene when Grant is sitting with his mannequin and is called away.

As he leaves, the mannequin gets up and puts the "real" mannequin back in its seat but this is never referenced again.

I'm guessing this is meant to be the Judge somehow infiltrating the police station, but it's a pretty complex and foolhardy plan which could have been discovered almost instantly had our hero tried to pick him up.

Anyone know why this was dropped into the film without explanation? Was it the Judge?

[–] mnoe 10 years ago

There's a nifty article about the film at MUBI which goes into extensive detail about the mannequin, and its evolution through various drafts of the screenplay. The authors take a scholarly tone, but I think you'll enjoy reading their obsession with the mannequin figure.

https://mubi.com/notebook/posts/deadpan-in-nulltown

last 2 views: The Dark Mirror (1946) & Union Station (1950)

[–] franzkabuki 9 years ago

Guess it was just a cool and creepy thing to do, illustrating the strangler's seeming omnipresence in the popular imagination.

But who was to follow whom quietly and why?

"facts are stupid things" Ronald Reagan

[–] liscarkat (18367) 6 years ago

The entire mannequin thing was ridiculous. They explained that they knew the killer's approximate height and weight, that he was middle-aged, had gray hair, and wore a suit. Putting a suit on a dummy didn't further their insight in any way. And the guy who was assigned to make it said "it'll take three, maybe four days." That dude was really milking it--he got a cloth dummy and put a suit and hat on it. Should've taken about ten minutes. Finally, the killer sneaks into the lieutenant's office and sits in the chair pretending to be the dummy, an extremely risky undertaking for which no purpose is ever revealed. I suppose the fact that he's crazy might explain that irrational stunt.

Oh, and "facts are stupid things" guy--please research Reagan and that often misrepresented quote.

[–] thingmakersback (1369) a month ago

It is the only really memorable scene in the film and there is no explanation. It is the sort of thing that you would expect from an almost supernaturally brilliant villain... But, this is not that sort of film. This film is, or tries to be, a believable police procedural - based, unfortunately, on vague memories of stuff seen in other movies... The creepy sequence with the fake dummy just relates to nothing else in the movie.