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Encyclopedia of Fantasy (1997)
Mannequin

Tagged: Film.

US movie (1987). Gladden/20th Century-Fox. Pr Art Levinson. Exec pr Joseph Farrell, Edward Rugoff. Dir Michael Gottlieb. Spfx Phil Cory. Screenplay Gottlieb, Rugoff. Starring G W Bailey (Felix), Kim Cattrall (Mannequin/Emmy), Andrew McCarthy (Jonathan Switcher), Meshach Taylor (Hollywood). 89 mins. Colour.

Sculptor manqué Switcher, employed menially at a department store, finds in its window the mannequin he made during a brief previous job. She comes to life – though only when they are alone – and tells him she is possessed (see Possession) by the spirit of an Ancient Egyptian princess, Emmy, freed by the Gods from her patriarchal society and granted Immortality in this limited form. After many adventures and some sex, Emmy is granted the gift of normal life, so that she and Switcher may marry.

A routine but good-humoured fantasy (it has the feel of a tvm), Mannequin owes something to John Collier's "Special Delivery" – where the fantasy is more Perception-based – and a lot to the movie One Touch of Venus (1948), based on a play by Ogden Nash and S J Perelman, in which a windowdresser falls in love with a statue of Venus that obligingly comes to life; the basic theme is, of course, that of Pygmalion. Mannequin was successful enough to spawn a limp sequel, Mannequin Two: On the Move (1991), with a different cast. [JG]



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