Lili is a 1953 American film released by MGM. It stars Leslie Caron as a touchingly naïve French girl whose emotional relationship with a carnival puppeteer is conducted through the medium of four puppets. The film won the Academy Award for Best Original Score, and was also entered in the 1953 Cannes Film Festival. It was later adapted for the stage under the title Carnival! (1961).
David Seth Kotkin, known professionally as David Copperfield, is an American stage magician, described by Forbes as the most commercially successful magician in history.
Leon Giglio, better known by his stage name Leon Mandrake, was an Italian-Canadian magician, mentalist, illusionist, escapologist, ventriloquist and stunt performer known worldwide as Mandrake the Magician, albeit simultaneously and unrelatedly to the comic strip character Mandrake the Magician.
World of Wonders is the third novel in Robertson Davies's Deptford Trilogy.
Catweazle is a British children's fantasy television series, starring Geoffrey Bayldon in the title role, and created by Richard Carpenter for London Weekend Television. The first series, produced and directed in 1969 by Quentin Lawrence, was screened in the UK on ITV in 1970. The second series, produced and directed in 1970 by David Reid and David Lane, was shown in 1971. Both series had thirteen episodes, most written by Carpenter, who also published a book for each series based on the scripts.
Ansiktet, also released as The Magician, is a 1958 Swedish film written and directed by Ingmar Bergman, starring Max von Sydow and Ingrid Thulin. The plot follows a traveling magician named Albert Vogler, whose allegedly supernatural live shows are challenged by the skeptical population of a small village.
Carnival is a musical, originally produced by David Merrick on Broadway in 1961, with the book by Michael Stewart and music and lyrics by Bob Merrill. The musical is based on the 1953 film Lili, which again was based on the short story and treatment titled "The Seven Souls of Clement O'Reilly" by Paul Gallico. The show's title originally used an exclamation point ; it was eventually dropped during the show's run, as director Gower Champion felt it gave the wrong impression, saying, "It's not a blockbuster. It's a gentle show."
The Funhouse is a 1980 novelization by American author Dean Koontz, based on a Larry Block screenplay, which was made into the 1981 film The Funhouse, directed by Tobe Hooper. As the film production took longer than expected, the book was released before the film.
Devil Doll is a 1964 British horror film directed and produced by Lindsay Shonteff and starring Bryant Haliday, William Sylvester and Yvonne Romain. The screenplay was by George Barclay and Lance Z. Hargreaves from a story by Frederick Escreet Smith. The story is about an evil stage hypnotist and his dummy Hugo.
Dracula vs. Frankenstein, released in the UK as Blood of Frankenstein, is a 1971 American science fiction horror film directed and co-produced by Al Adamson. The film stars J. Carrol Naish as Dr. Durea, a descendant of Dr. Frankenstein who is working on a blood serum with his assistant Groton. The serum soon becomes sought after by Count Dracula, who hopes that it will grant him the ability to be exposed to sunlight without harm. Other members of the film's cast include Anthony Eisley, Regina Carrol, Angelo Rossitto and Russ Tamblyn.
Carnival in Costa Rica is a 1947 American musical film directed by Gregory Ratoff and written by Samuel Hoffenstein, John Larkin, and Elizabeth Reinhardt. It was released in Technicolor by Twentieth Century-Fox. Dick Haymes, Vera-Ellen, Cesar Romero, and Celeste Holm starred as two pairs of lovers who try to thwart an arranged marriage at Carnival time in Costa Rica.
Blood of Ghastly Horror is a 1967 science fiction horror film directed by Al Adamson and starring John Carradine, Tommy Kirk, Kent Taylor, and Regina Carrol.
For over a century, hypnosis has been a popular theme in fiction – literature, film, and television. It features in movies almost from their inception and more recently has been depicted in television and online media. As Harvard hypnotherapist Deirdre Barrett points out in 'Hypnosis in Popular Media', the vast majority of these depictions are negative stereotypes of either control for criminal profit and murder or as a method of seduction. Others depict hypnosis as all-powerful or even a path to supernatural powers.
Black Magic is a 1949 Italian–American adventure drama film directed by Gregory Ratoff and starring Orson Welles, Nancy Guild and Akim Tamiroff. Set in the 18th century, it chronicles the life of Joseph Balsamo, an illusionist and charlatan who also went by the alias of Count Cagliostro. It is an adaptation of Alexandre Dumas' 1848 novel Joseph Balsamo.
David Tobias "Theodore" Bamberg was an itinerant magician who traveled with his full evening magic show from the early to mid part of the 20th century. In Bamberg's autobiography, Robert Parrish wrote in the introduction that no other great illusionist could match Bamberg's skill. The Fu Manchu show was known for its comedy, drama, and color.
Doctor Dracula is a 1978 horror film directed by Al Adamson, featuring John Carradine. According to the Vinegar Syndrome website, who released a DVD version in 2018, the film is a "schizoid reworking" of Paul Aratow's Lucifers's Women.
Shawn Farquhar is a Canadian magician and illusionist notable for his title as the "Grand Prix World Champion of Magic" from the International Federation of Magic Societies.
Clarence Elvin Feltner Jr, was an American film producer, television broadcaster and telecommunications entrepreneur. He was best known for producing the cult film Carnival Magic, for his role in a landmark copyright infringement decision v. Columbia Television, and as the owner of a significant private film collection.
Psycho A-Go-Go is a 1965 crime thriller directed by Al Adamson, starring Roy Morton and distributed by Hemisphere Pictures. The film was originally a straight action thriller, about a psychotic jewel thief who stalks a young woman and her child into the wilderness to get back some stolen jewels hidden in the child's doll. There were a number of musical nightclub scenes in the film, as director Adamson was trying to promote actress Tacey Robbins' singing career at the time. Al Adamson played a cameo in the film, playing one of the jewel thieves who gets shot to death on a rooftop by one of his own cohorts.
Unicorn Tales is a series of eight musical short films for young audiences created and directed by Nick De Noia in association with NBC that aired sporadically as television specials as well as 16 mm educational films. Each 23-minute episode, made in 1977 or 1978, tells a modern version of a fairy tale with three songs integral to the story's narratives and themes. Some of the child actors went on to later fame, including Ava Haddad, Alex Paez, Michael Eric Kramer, Tisha Campbell, Marcelino Sanchez, and Trini Alvarado. Most episodes were set in Unicorn City, a lightly fictionalized version of New York City with the same mayor, Abraham Beame, featuring a multicultural cast. A stock company of actors appeared in various episodes, usually in different roles, although characters from The Magic Hat appear in Carnival Circus. A lead actor in one episode may be an extra in others.
