The Mad Magician 3D Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		4.0
Audio		3.5
Extras		3.5
Overall		3.0

The Mad Magician 3D Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman January 27, 2017

Director John Brahm seems to be having something of a mini-renaissance, at least as evidenced by the recent Blu-ray releases of The Undying Monster and The Lodger a few weeks ago by Kino Lorber, and now this new 2D/3D Blu-ray presentation of The Mad Magician. Brahm never really penetrated into a permanent position on the A-list echelon, but he had his moments, as evidenced by big hits like The Lodger and its follow up Hangover Square. The Mad Magician is in itself something of a follow up, an obvious attempt to cash in on the huge box office that had been generated by 1953’s Vincent Price extravaganza House of Wax 3D, a film which defied expectations to become one of the crowning box office heroes of that year for Warner Brothers. The commentary on this Blu-ray indicates that Price had a choice to make when he was offered House of Wax, turning down a Broadway bound play (which later became the basis for the film We're No Angels) in order to accept the horror assignment, and therefore recasting much of the rest of his career within the context of this genre. The “horror” elements of The Mad Magician are often hinted at rather than overtly depicted in the film, but there’s little question that the film wants to be House of Wax 2 in at least some ways, with a mad artist marauding through an increasing body count. In other ways, though, The Mad Magician presages much later Price pieces like The Abominable Dr. Phibes, with Price’s character appending various prosthetics to change his appearance while carrying out his murderous mayhem. The Mad Magician doesn’t quite have the moody style of some of Brahm’s best work, but some of the film occasionally hints at German Abstract Expressionism in some of its framings, while also attempting to fully utilize the then already cooling fad of 3D.

The fact that The Mad Magician is barely over an hour long would seem to suggest it wasn’t much more than a B picture, meant to help fill out a double bill, but producer Bryan Foy (who also produced House of Wax) probably didn’t care about such distinctions, though he had in fact had built his career out of quickie second string features (he headed Warner’s B unit for decades). House of Wax was for Foy probably somewhat akin to what happened to William Castle when he produced Rosemary's Baby, suddenly elevating a long gestating life in the film industry to a new level of respect. That said, The Mad Magician doesn’t ever really rise to the admittedly goofy heights of House of Wax, despite some stylistic flourishes on the part of Brahm and an almost comically hyperbolic performance by Price.

Don Gallico (Vincent Price) is a magician who, like similar prestidigitators in much later films like The Prestige, is out to shock and amaze audiences by constructing new devices to build set pieces around, though as he tosses off in a brief aside, he's spent most of his career building "wow" items for other magicians to feature instead of debuting them himself, something that seems to have made him a little bitter. In this particular case, it’s a huge buzzsaw apparatus that is supposedly going to decapitate a comely young assistant, only to (of course) not kill her after all. While Gallico’s routine contains a silly segment devoted to water spouting out of various objects (something Brahm utilizes to “squirt” the audience in the 3D version), this new prop promises to up the anxiety level of Gallico audience members. Unfortunately for Gallico, however, he’s under contract to a nefarious entrepreneur named Ross Ormond (Donald Randolph), who shows up and closes down Gallico’s show since he (Ormond) wants the new buzzsaw device for himself. This is one of the sillier plot contrivances in the film, since it really doesn’t make a lot of sense that Ormond, who assumedly gets his scratch from Gallico’s box office receipts, would want to put the kibosh on those very receipts, but it is of course merely a screenwriting convenience to give Gallico something to go off his rocker over.

Certain elements of what should have been the back story are never really clearly delineated in The Mad Magician, including Gallico’s Prestige-esque rivalry with another magician, The Great Rinaldi (John Emery), one which assumedly has been sparked by Gallico's inability to use his inventions himself. In fact one of Gallico’s first (unexplained) disguises is as Rinaldi, something that at least indicates Gallico is perhaps obsessed with this nemesis, though the reasons for the acrimony aren’t ever developed as fully as they might have been. When Ormond shows up with Rinaldi at Gallico’s workshop so that Gallico can explain to Rinaldi how the buzzsaw contraption works, it’s another somewhat wasted opportunity to let the audience know more about the motivating factor behind the situation, but Crane Wilbur’s screenplay never provides any really satisfying information in this regard. (Wilbur, like Price and Foy, was part of the House of Wax production.)

Instead, the film is content to merely trot out a series of Phibes like vignettes where the increasingly unhinged Gallico makes his way through various shenanigans which include “interchanges” with Ormond, Ormond’s wife Claire (Eva Gabor), and, ultimately, a police detective named Alan Bruce (Patrick O’Neal) who initially at least is on Gallico’s side, but who begins to use nascent forensic methods to figure out who the killer is in a plot conceit that's more than a bit reminiscent of a similar gambit in Brahm's The Undying Monster. Interestingly, while the Gallico-Rinaldi rivalry is never adequately detailed, there’s at least some passing lip service given to the history between Ormond and Gallico with regard to Claire, something that at least explains some of the dysfunction in the men’s relationship. But even this aspect probably could have used some further exposition, something that might have led to a better delineation of Gallico as a wounded Phantom of the Opera (or indeed Dr. Phibes) type out to right long ago wrongs.

The Mad Magician 3D Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The Mad Magician is presented on Blu-ray with AVC (2D) and MVC (3D) encoded 1080p transfers in 1.78:1 (the back cover incorrectly lists 1.85:1). The disc will only allow a 3D option if it detects a 3D player and monitor; otherwise, only the 2D version is playable. Those with 3D players can opt for a 2D presentation if they wish. We've become accustomed to practically perfect in every way transfers from Sony-Columbia, and while this presentation is generally excellent, it had a couple of issues which stuck out to me, one of which may be completely personal and "non transferable", so to speak. That is with regard to the optical dissolves in the 3D version (and there are quite a few transitional dissolves throughout the film), which I found a little hard to watch in 3D for some reason. I've personally experienced anomalies with 3D presentations that others don't necessarily share (e.g., I found Comin' at Ya! 3D virtually unwatchable, while Svet evidently found the 3D presentation excellent), so this may simply be an issue with my particular visual cortex "wiring". The rest of the 3D presentation is wonderful, if also inherently goofy, with elements like water and yo-yo's being thrust out directly at the audience. I actually found some of the more subtle dimensionality to be more convincing and enjoyable, as when Brahm positions a foreground object at the corner of the frame (frequently out of focus), which immediately offers spatial context for everything that's in back of it. The other element was overall brightness and contrast. While blacks appear true, there's a slightly blanched look that I personally wish could have been tweaked a bit to provide a better modulated gray scale (see screenshots 5 and 7). That said, detail levels are generally very good, at least in close-ups, where elements like fabric patterns resolve with some precision. Some midrange shots are a bit soft looking, and there are a couple of cutaways, like those to the audience in Gallico's theater, that are quite a bit softer looking than the bulk of the presentation (see screenshot 10). Grain is natural looking, if a bit coarse at times, and encounters no compression issues.

The Mad Magician 3D Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The Mad Magician's DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 mono track can't quite avoid an inherent boxiness which is a remnant of its era, but it delivers dialogue generally very well. Music has a slightly tinny sound (I would have loved some more elucidation on the score, which sounds like it uses a theremin for an opening "spooky" cue), but there's no outright damage to report.

The Mad Magician 3D Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Master of Fright!: Conjuring The Mad Magician (1080p; 19:49) is a new featurette from Ballyhoo which presents a number of interesting comments and background information.


• The Three Stooges in Pardon My Backfire (1080p; 15:56) is a typically manic Stooges affair from 1953 which is available in both 2D and 3D versions. The boys are mechanics who end up getting mixed up with some bad guys who need their car repaired.


• The Three Stooges in Spooks (1080p; 15:44) is another 1953 opus from the trio available in both 2D and 3D versions. They're private detectives in this one, though somebody evidently needed to learn how to spell "sleuth".


• Original Theatrical Trailer (1080p; 2:09)


• Isolated Score Track is presented in DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0.


• Audio Commentary features David Del Valle and Steven Peros.

The Mad Magician 3D Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

The Mad Magician never attains the weird majesty of House of Wax, and it's probably too short and even truncated feeling to build up much suspense, but taken for the gimmick laden 3D experience it obviously was aiming to be, it's old fashioned, goofy fun. Aficionados of vintage 3D material have had a field day recently, especially with the efforts of folks like Robert Furmanek at 3-D Archive, and those who enjoy "in your face" entertainment should get a kick (or at least a spray of water) out of this entry. Recommended.