6.5 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 3.0 | |
Overall | 3.0 |
Sir Guy Grand, the richest man in the world, adopts a homeless boy, Youngman. Together, they set out to prove that anyone--and anything--can be bought with money.
Starring: Peter Sellers, Ringo Starr, Isabel Jeans, Wilfrid Hyde-White, Richard AttenboroughComedy | 100% |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.85:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio Mono
None
25GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region A (C untested)
Movie | 2.5 | |
Video | 4.0 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 0.0 | |
Overall | 3.0 |
Considering the handful or so of iconic films to which he contributed over the years, Terry Southern is a curiously unrecognized name, even by some who consider themselves relatively well schooled in film history. Southern was at the forefront of a new, more acerbic, generation of writers who came up through the ranks in the 1950s and 1960s. Southern was hired by Stanley Kubrick to help rewrite Dr. Strangelove, a short term assignment that nonetheless catapulted Southern into one of the more recognized names in the world of screenwriting, despite Kubrick’s insistence that Southern had not contributed that much to the final product. Southern evidently contributed in some way to an unlikely follow up property, William Wyler’s only foray into horror-thriller territory, 1965’s The Collector, before moving on to two incredibly disparate films, the delicious (if somewhat perverse) black comedy The Loved One and the film many confuse with The Hustler, The Cincinnati Kid. A couple of more uncredited work for hire jobs ensued (including the disastrous 1967 version of Casino Royale), as well as Southern’s soft porn novel reworking of Candide, now called Candy, which was filmed in 1968 to a screenplay by another master of black comedy, Buck Henry. 1968 also saw Southern’s adaptive treatment of Barbarella make it to the silver screen. And then in 1969 Southern wrote a “little” film that set the entire film industry on its ear and helped to usher in a decade of independent productions that helped advance the death knell the major studios were already experiencing. That film? Easy Rider. At this point in his career, Southern probably could have done anything he damn well pleased, which may explain, at least in part, the somewhat inchoate mess that is Southern’s “other” 1969 film, The Magic Christian. Southern had actually written the novel of The Magic Christian in 1959, and legend has it that it was a gift of that novel from Peter Sellers to Stanley Kubrick which encouraged the director to hire the author to work on Strangelove. The ensuing decade between the novel’s debut and the film version was one of considerable sociopolitical upheaval, changes that might seem on their surface to play extremely well into Southern’s bristling desconstruction of the capitalist ethic. But the very independent spirit which was so much a part of Southern’s Easy Rider often works against The Magic Christian, a film that is often fascinating but rarely as funny as it really should be.
The Magic Christian is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Olive Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1. This is generally one of the nicer looking recent glut of sixties and seventies releases from Olive, though it has a couple of anomalies along the way. Colors are fairly accurate looking, though once again may have faded, if only slightly. Fine detail is quite good in the film's many (sometimes bizarre) close-ups. There are a couple of moments of mosquito noise which are a bit peculiar. The worst of these is early in the film when Guy and Youngman land in their helicopter, when the gray sky is littered with it. Otherwise, though, aside from the requisite minor scratches and other slight damage, this is a very nice looking high definition presentation.
The Magic Christian's lossless DTS-HD Master Audio Mono track suffices reasonably well, though some may wish they had been able to hear the Badfinger (and other band) tunes in a wider sonic setting. Dialogue is quite crisply rendered and the score also sounds fine (regular Beatles collaborator Ken Thorne provided the underscore).
No supplements are offered on this Blu-ray disc.
The Magic Christian is a lot like the late sixties themselves—unbridled, chaotic, probably high on drugs and more or less completely unkempt. As a time capsule, it's invaluable. As a film, it's a hit or miss affair at best. There are some scattered laughs to be had here and there, but the film is simply too manic for its own good most of the time. Some of the cameos are so bizarre that they probably "need" to be seen at least once in any discerning filmgoer's experience, but my hunch is anyone thinking this is going to have the general hilarity of either some of Southern's other works or (especially) the Monty Python outings will be at least somewhat disappointed. Still, for curiosity sake alone, The Magic Christian comes Recommended.
1998
1993
Warner Archive Collection
2003
2009
1968
1969
1996
1977
1992-1998
2010
One Plus One / The Rolling Stones
1968
Limited Edition to 10,000
1965-1969
Warner Archive Collection
1961
1967
Limited Edition to 3000
1957
2015
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1963
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1983
2020
2020