The Mad Magician | |
---|---|
![]() Theatrical release poster | |
Directed by | John Brahm |
Written by | Crane Wilbur |
Produced by | Bryan Foy |
Starring | Vincent Price Mary Murphy Eva Gabor |
Cinematography | Bert Glennon |
Edited by | Grant Whytock |
Music by | Arthur Lange Emil Newman |
Production company | |
Distributed by | Columbia Pictures |
Release date |
|
Running time | 73 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
The Mad Magician is a 1954 American horror film in 3D, directed by John Brahm starring Vincent Price, Mary Murphy and Eva Gabor. It was produced and distributed by Columbia Pictures, with a release in 3-D to build on the craze started by films such as House of Wax (1953), which also starred Price. In the film, a master illusionist murders his employer after learning he tricked him into signing away ownership of every trick he invents, and finds that to avoid being caught for the murder he must kill again and again.
Don Gallico is a master of disguise and inventor of stage-magic effects aspiring to become a star magician under the stage name Gallico the Great in the late 19th century. Disguised as The Great Rinaldi, a headlining rival magician, Gallico performs his first magic show, headlined by his latest illusion, the buzz-saw. Businessman Ross Ormond and his lawyer stop the show and serve Gallico a cease and desist order against the performance of the buzz-saw trick. Gallico signed a contract with Ormond's Illusions, Inc., a magician's trick provider, to invent new tricks, granting Ormond ownership of all work created by Gallico, not just the tricks produced for Illusions, Inc., Gallico's understanding.
At Gallico's work area in the Illusions, Inc. warehouse, Ormond and Gallico argue over how Ormond could have stopped Gallico from using the buzz-saw before he launched his show, thus sparing him massive expense and public humiliation, and interrupted the show just to assert his power over Gallico. Gallico also accuses Ormond of corrupting his wife Claire, who is now married to Ormond, to which Ormond says that Claire was always a gold digger. Incensed, Gallico forces Ormond into the buzz-saw and decapitates him. He puts Ormond's severed head in a bag for disposal. The bag is mistakenly taken by Gallico's assistant Karen Lee when she drops by to meet up with her boyfriend, police detective Lt. Alan Bruce. Lee forgets the bag in a hansom cab, and the cabbie turns it over to police; Gallico allows the police to think the bag is Lee's.
Gallico impersonates Ormond to rent an apartment from Alice Prentiss, an author of mystery novels. Prentiss mentions a bonfire celebration of a local sports team's victory. Gallico disguises Ormond's body as a dummy and adds it to the bonfire, but Ormond's skeletal remains are found in the ashes. Searching for her missing husband, Claire learns of the rented apartment. When she confronts Gallico she recognizes him through his disguise and deduces that he murdered Ormond. Gallico strangles her to keep her from exposing him, then flees before Prentiss can arrive in response to Claire's screams.
Since Prentiss confirms Ormond's presence in the room where Claire was killed, and the fingerprints on her throat match other prints Gallico left while impersonating Ormond, police conclude Ormond is the killer. However, Rinaldi hints to them that they cannot be sure the prints they used for the match are really Ormond's. Gallico invites the Prentisses to a preview performance of his new illusion, The Crematorium, in which he appears to be incinerated in a fiery furnace. Afterwards, the Great Rinaldi tells Gallico he has deduced that he murdered Claire while using a mask to impersonate Ormond, and blackmails him in exchange for the use of all Gallico's future illusions in his act. Gallico murders Rinaldi and incinerates his remains in The Crematorium. To disguise the time of Rinaldi's disappearance, he impersonates Rinaldi and takes over his tour. Troubled by Rinaldi's remark about the fingerprints, Bruce tries to get his fingerprints of other persons of interest, but Gallico in the guise of Rinaldi refuses.
Mulling over the scene of the crime and subconsciously recognized similarities between Gallico and "Ormond", Prentiss realizes that Gallico was impersonating Ormand and communicates her theory to Bruce. Bruce and Prentiss break into Gallico's work space to obtain his fingerprints. Gallico returns before they can leave, knocks Bruce out, and loads him onto The Crematorium. Prentiss calls out to Lee on the street below for help. Lee pounds on the door, distracting Gallico long enough for Prentiss to free Bruce from his bonds. Gallico attacks Bruce, and Bruce inadvertently knocks him into The Creamtorium, where he is incinerated.
Actor | Role |
---|---|
Vincent Price | Don Gallico / Gallico the Great |
Mary Murphy | Karen Lee |
Eva Gabor | Claire Ormond |
John Emery | The Great Rinaldi |
Donald Randolph | Ross Ormond |
Lenita Lane | Alice Prentiss |
Patrick O'Neal | Police Detective Lt. Alan Bruce |
Jay Novello | Frank Prentiss |
Corey Allen | Gus the Stagehand (uncredited)[ citation needed ] |
Lyle Talbot | Disguised program hawker (uncredited)[ citation needed ] |
Tom Powers | Police inspector (uncredited)[ citation needed ] |
Dennis Schwartz from Dennis Schwartz Movie Reviews awarded the film a grade B, writing "It was cheesy fun with a delightfully villainous Vincent, but the whole act was too tawdry and incredible to be swallowed whole and the melodramatic plot points were too contrived and the demented scenario too hokey." [1] On his website Fantastic Movie Musings and Ramblings, Dave Sindelar gave the film a negative review. Sindelar stated that the film felt cobbled together, and lacked the mood and ambiance of its predecessor, House of Wax. [2] TV Guide gave the film 2/5 stars, calling it "vastly inferior 3-D rip-off of Price's surprisingly successful 3-D shocker HOUSE OF WAX". [3] Jay Seaver from eFilmCritic awarded the film an average rating of 3/5 stars, calling its scenario "straight-facedly silly", but stated that it was still entertaining even though it was inferior to its predecessor. [4]
William Ellsworth Robinson was an American magician who went by the stage name Chung Ling Soo. He is mostly remembered today for his extensive use of yellowface in his act to falsely represent himself to be a Chinese man who spoke little English, as well as for his accidental death due to a failed bullet catch trick.
Nora Prentiss is a 1947 American film noir directed by Vincent Sherman and starring Ann Sheridan, Kent Smith, Bruce Bennett, and Robert Alda. It was produced and distributed by Warner Bros. The cinematography is by James Wong Howe and the music was composed by Franz Waxman. The film's sets were designed by the art director Anton Grot.
The Web is a 1947 American film noir crime film starring Edmond O'Brien, Ella Raines, William Bendix and Vincent Price,
The Illusionist is a 2006 American romantic mystery film written and directed by Neil Burger, and starring Edward Norton, Paul Giamatti and Jessica Biel. Based loosely on Steven Millhauser's short story "Eisenheim the Illusionist", it tells the story of Eisenheim, a magician in turn-of-the-century Vienna, who reunites with his childhood love, a woman far above his social standing. It also depicts a fictionalized version of the Mayerling incident.
The Prestige is a 2006 psychological thriller film directed by Christopher Nolan, written by Nolan and his brother Jonathan and based on the 1995 novel by Christopher Priest. It stars Hugh Jackman as Robert Angier and Christian Bale as Alfred Borden, rival stage magicians in Victorian London who feud over a perfect teleportation illusion.
Needle-through-arm is a magic illusion that was created by Bruce Spangler and later popularized by comedy actor/magician Harry Anderson. The trick can be performed as part of either a stage magic or a parlor magic routine. As the name would suggest, needle-through-arm relies on shock value to have a comedic effect.
Val Valentino is an American magician. Valentino is best known for starring in the television show Breaking the Magician's Code: Magic's Biggest Secrets Finally Revealed, where he exposes the methods behind numerous classic magic tricks and illusions on the Fox network. In the specials, he used the stage name the Masked Magician and concealed his true identity by wearing a mask with a squid like design, being aware of the stigma amongst the magic community with publicly exposing tricks. As the finale to the final special, Valentino revealed his identity as the Masked Magician, garnering some notoriety amongst the magic community, and instigating several lawsuits.
Smokin' Aces is a 2006 American action thriller film written and directed by Joe Carnahan. The film centers on the chase for Las Vegas magician turned mafia informant Buddy "Aces" Israel, on whom a one-million-dollar bounty is placed. The ensemble cast includes Ryan Reynolds, Ben Affleck, Jason Bateman, Common, Andy García, Alicia Keys, Taraji P. Henson, Ray Liotta, Chris Pine, and Matthew Fox, all co-starring as the various individuals attempting to either capture, kill or protect Israel.
The Guillotine is a magic trick where it appears that a blade of a guillotine passes through a person's neck without harming them. Variations on the theme have been performed for hundreds of years, with documented examples appearing in print in the 16th century. The most common modern variation is the finger guillotine or finger chopper, a pocked-sized version that appears to chop off the magician's finger.
The She-Creature, or The She Creature, is a 1956 American black-and-white science fiction horror film, released by American International Pictures from a script by Lou Rusoff. It was produced by Alex Gordon, directed by Edward L. Cahn, and stars Chester Morris, Marla English and Tom Conway, and casting Frieda Inescort and El Brendel in smaller roles. The producers hired Marla English because they thought she bore a strong resemblance to Elizabeth Taylor.
Miracles for Sale is a 1939 American mystery film directed by Tod Browning, and starring Robert Young and Florence Rice. It was Browning's final film as a director. The film is based on a locked-room mystery novel by well-known mystery writer Clayton Rawson, Death from a Top Hat, which was the first to feature his series detective The Great Merlini. In this film, Merlini's character has been changed into Michael Morgan as portrayed by Robert Young. Don Diavolo, another series character in Rawson's work under his pseudonym, Stuart Towne, appears here as Dave Duvallo.
"The Amazing Maleeni" is the eighth episode of the seventh season of the science fiction television series The X-Files. It premiered on the Fox network in the United States on January 16, 2000. It was written by Vince Gilligan, John Shiban, and Frank Spotnitz and directed by Thomas J. Wright. The episode is a "Monster-of-the-Week" story, unconnected to the series' wider mythology. "The Amazing Maleeni" earned a Nielsen household rating of 9.4, being watched by 16.18 million people in its initial broadcast. The episode received mixed reviews.
The Thrill Killers is a 1964 American horror film directed by Ray Dennis Steckler. It stars Steckler and Liz Renay.
Voodoo Island is a 1957 American horror film directed by Reginald Le Borg and written by Richard H. Landau. The film stars Boris Karloff, with a cast including Elisha Cook Jr., Beverly Tyler and Rhodes Reason. It is set in the South Pacific and was filmed on Kauai, Hawaii back to back with Jungle Heat. Adam West appears in a small pre-"Batman" uncredited role.
Curse of the Undead is a 1959 American Horror Western film directed by Edward Dein and starring Eric Fleming, Michael Pate and Kathleen Crowley.
The Drums of Jeopardy is a 1931 American pre-Code horror film directed by George B. Seitz and starring Warner Oland, June Collyer and Lloyd Hughes. It is the second film adaptation of Harold McGrath's novel of the same name, and stars Oland as Dr. Boris Karlov.
Boston Blackie and the Law is the twelfth of fourteen Columbia Pictures films starring Chester Morris as reformed crook Boston Blackie.
The Mad Doctor of Blood Island is a 1969 Filipino horror film, co-directed by Eddie Romero and Gerardo de Leon, and starring John Ashley, Angelique Pettyjohn, Eddie Garcia and Ronald Remy.
The Mysterious Doctor is a 1943 American horror film directed by Benjamin Stoloff and written by Richard Weil. The film stars John Loder, Eleanor Parker, Bruce Lester, Lester Matthews and Forrester Harvey. The film was released by Warner Bros. on March 3, 1943.
The Face of Marble is a 1946 American horror film directed by William Beaudine and starring John Carradine, Claudia Drake and Robert Shayne.