Batman: The Animated Series

Scarface was kinda a C list villian in the Batman lineup for me, but this episode was a big boost which made him actually become one of the most memorable villians. In a way this episode is a bit of a psychological horror that is similar in vein to the old horror film "Dead of Night" and the underrated "Magic" which stared Sir Anthony Hopkins.



This episode is blackly comical at times but is just downright creepy because of the intensity of the relationship between both the ventriloquist and the dummy Scarface. It's obviously that the ventriloquist repressed dark desires/persona can only be manifested by a disasoative figure which is the dummy. The voice actor that plays this character does a spot on job it's easy to mistake two people playing the role when it's acutally one. Both the personas really contrast from one another the Ventrilquist we see is a very timid but extremely loyal person. Scarface is bacially your typical 20's ganster criminal mastermind. What's amazing is not just the fact that Scarface/Ventriliquist truely does have a mind like a chess player despite insane by nature; but just simply the relationship between the two in a strange way it's almost like a sibling relationship.



There are three scenes that really stick out for me, one would be when Scarface suspects his pupeteer the Ventriliquist is a trator and does the most craziest thing I've seen any villian/supervillan do, Scarface actually points his gun at the Ventriliquist which of course is pointing it at himself. I'm thinking at that moment is he crazy enough to actually kill himself, due to the intesnity of the moment I'm afraid he is.



Then there is that scene where we see the Scarface dummy get shot up and then the Ventrilquist screams and then cries over it. I couldn't help but feel a little sad for the guy as if he lost his best friend (I said a little since that friend isn't real).



But of course the final scene which gave me a cold chill, where the Ventrilquist is in Arkum Asylum and you see he seems better and is constructing something. We then see he is actually reconstructing Scarface, in a way that moment goes to show that evil never dies.

The Ventriloquist had always struck me as a second-tier Batman villain, until I saw his depiction on "The Animated Series." With a voice performance by George Dzundza and a hard-boiled script by Joe Lansdale, "Read My Lips" is a stand-out episode.



The idea of a ventriloquist's dummy as a mob boss is laughable at first, and it probably would have come across as such in the episode if Arnold Weskler wasn't presented as so bughouse crazy. Even though Scarface is the dominant personality, it is Weskler's obseqious devotion to him that makes him such a creepy villain. Witness the final scenes, when he begins to create a "new" Scarface in Arkham. The music, combined with the image of the knife tearing into the face of the dummy, is one of the best fade-out endings this series ever pulled off.



Dzundza sells the character, moreso than he ever did as the watered down version of Perry White on "Superman." His Scarface is brassy and fills up the room, while the Ventriloquist is meek and fawning. At times, it really does seem like two different actors playing the roles, and that's a testament to his chops as a voice actor.



Not enough can be said about Joe R. Lansdale's script. One of three scripts he contributed to the series, this is as hard-boiled as they come. I love Batman's exchanges with the goons he is interrogating ("You're breakin' my heart, Rhino.") as well as his shock when he learns the identity of the mastermind behind the new crime spree in Gotham. Lansdale's other scripts ("Perchance to Dream" and "Showdown") are also classics, and it's a shame he didn't submit more episodes to the series.