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The Magic Christian (1969)

Started by Blumf, April 11, 2020, 08:10:48 PM

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Blumf


Ballad of Ballard Berkley

It's a sporadically brilliant mess.

Blumf

Yeah, seems to be a problem with a lot of films like this. The ideas are coherent, but the way the scenes are filmed don't hang together.

Things seem to get better around the time the Python films come around.

Ballad of Ballard Berkley

I think it needed an imaginative yet disciplined director like Richard Lester to give it some structure and focus. As you say, it has a coherent point of view, it could've been a razor-sharp piece of anarchic satire, but no one involved seemed to know what they were doing.

Still worth watching as an interesting example of post-Goons and proto-Python comedy, though. Given half the chance, Chapman and Cleese might've written a great vehicle for Sellers.

Blumf

Yep, definitely not regretting watching it. Funny in places, and even when it's not, it's still interesting on a variety of levels.

Ignatius_S

For a long time, the film was tainted for being an all-star flop and usually described as a stinker. When discussed at any sort of length, the focus tended to be on the film's shortcomings. Although a messy film and parts are definitely greater than the sum, the film's reputation was not (entirely) deserved and I'm actually quite fond of it. However, when I subsequently read the book, it really brought home how cack-handed the adaptation was.

A core issue with the film is that it's a bastardisation of the book that created a confused offspring with an identity crisis. In part, this is because - like The Rise and Rise of Michael Rimmer, which Cleese and Chapman also co-wrote - there were too many cooks spoiling the script broth. Although it's often said to be a 'loose adaption' a lot of the material is taken from the book and revised.

Francis Veber in an interview commented that when a Hollywood studio remade one of his films, they invariably say 'we love the original and we want to make it better', and invariably, lose what made it work in the first place. That I would say, occurs here. Scenes taken from the book but what occurs is ramped up but with less satisfying results. For example, with the boxing match, the heavyweight champion is bribed to burst into tears and bawl 'he hit me' in the book, which I found simpler and funnier.

In the book, some of Guy's pranks are slow-burners - these would be hard to translate in film, so we're left on reliance for the quicker pranks. It's understandable that they would want to want to gild the lily with these, but typically the result illustrates more is less. Also, in the book (IIRC) the reader is often presented with concepts rather than the pranks being described out in detail - and my gut feeing is that the former tends to be be funnier. Compared to the book, the pranks of Sellers' Guy are more demeaning and more mean-spirited; in the book, Guy cuts a more ambiguous figure, who wants to bewilder people, not degrade them. The differences of the hot dog vendor is a good illustration of this; thinking about it, it also suggests that the film's Guy is apt to make things up as he goes along, whereas the book's is completely calculating. I would also add that I felt there's a more unsettling, slightly sinister aspect to Guy in the book, which isn't in Seller's portrayal.

Also, the introduction of a sidekick in the shape of Starr, really doesn't work.

I would agree that direction is an issue - too often, it has the subtlety of a sledgehammer and feel it wasn't a good idea for McGrath to be involved in the writing as well.

studpuppet

I'd venture its biggest cultural impact was that it helped split the Beatles more quickly than should have happened.
One of the pressures they were under when the Get Back sessions started, was that they had to have whatever they were doing wrapped up by the end of Jan '69 because Ringo had to go off to shoot this in Feb.

Ambient Sheep

Repeated tomorrow night (Thursday 16th April) at 10pm.  Seems to be the last showing for the time being.

neveragain

It's got some really unnecessary (if brief and news-famous) snuff footage in the middle.

Egyptian Feast

As Ignatius_S says, the book is much better, but the film has it's moments (and a lovely theme tune). Am I right in thinking there were plans at one point to make a movie of Southern's Blue Movie? That would have surely been a fascinating disaster.

Ignatius_S

Quote from: studpuppet on April 12, 2020, 01:10:19 PM
I'd venture its biggest cultural impact was that it helped split the Beatles more quickly than should have happened.
One of the pressures they were under when the Get Back sessions started, was that they had to have whatever they were doing wrapped up by the end of Jan '69 because Ringo had to go off to shoot this in Feb.

That's an interesting point - also, got me thinking about the book; as it helped introduce Southern to Kubrick and started his film career, could argue it that the novel had a wider cultural impact.

Posted some of an interview with Southern about Blue Movie - the bit below is about The Magic Christian http://www.altx.com/interviews/terry.southern.html. The auction scene mentioned, IIRC, was one of the few written by Cleese and Chapman - in any case, it was very against what Guy was about, as Southern says.

QuoteYour next big project was The Magic Christian. That project had been in gestation for about four or five years before starting to shoot in February of 1969.

"The way it evolved was that Peter Sellers and Joe McGrath had been working together with Richard Lester on his Running Jumping, Standing Still Film, so they got to be good friends. McGrath had been working as an assistant to Richard Lester. McGrath wanted to direct something on his own. He asked Peter what would be a good movie to direct. And that turned out to be The Magic Christian. Peter had bought a hundred copies of my novel to give out on birthdays and Christmas. Joe McGrath thought it was a match made in heaven so Peter immediately started to develop the property. Peter had a contract with some studio which had produced his last movie. He told them Christian was going to be his next movie and he wanted Joe to direct. Did they want to finance it or did they want him to find some one else? Their first reaction was "Yes, we'll do it."

Was it your idea to give Guy Grand a son, which, along with switching the location from America to England, was the major departure from the novel ?

"Well that came about because the producers wanted to get what they called some extra box office appeal. Peter had seen me hanging out with Paul (McCartney), I think, and said "Well, Terry knows the Beatles maybe we can get one of them." Ringo had said that he would like to be in the movie. So I said, "How about getting Ringo and then we can do something." I've forgotten who came up with the specific idea of having one of The Beatles as Guy Grand's son, Youngman Grand, but I was willing to try it."

I understand you completed the script with Joseph McGrath, but that he and Sellers and company made changes while you were busy with End Of The Road.

"When I finally made it to the set, I spent a lot of time doing damage control on The Magic Christian. It was probably due to Seller's insecurity or a manifestation of that. Although he loved the original script and it was the key to getting started, he also had this habit where he would run into some one socially like John Cleese or Spike Milligan and they would get to talking and he would say, "Hey listen, can you help me on this script?" They would come in and make various changes, sometimes completely out of character from my point of view. I came back and found these scenes, a couple of which had already been shot, seemed to be the antithesis of what Guy Grand would do. They were tasteless scenes. Guy Grand never hurt anyone. He just deflated some monstrous egos and pretensions, but would never slash a Rembrandt which they had in the movie There's a scene at Sotheby's or Christies where an auctioneer just to outrage the crowd or the art lover defaced this great painting. Guy Grand would never do that. It was gratuitous destruction; wanton, irresponsible bullshit which had nothing to with the character or the statement. It was very annoying. They had already shot the auction scene and agreed to take it out for a time and Peter did come around to see it was tasteless. But Peter was such a big star that the producers would never argue with him."

There was no dissenting opinion on the film?

"No, Joe McGrath didn't dissent. He could have dissented at the time they were making these changes, because he was the director. He had a more disciplined sense of comedy than Peter, if not Peter's flaring strokes of genius. McGrath didn't have that much control and he was so in awe of Peter that he wasn't able to resist him."

Towards the end of production, you were planning to shoot the final scene with Guy Grand and his son persuading various passersby to wade into tank full of manure and help themselves to money floating at the top of the mess at the base of the Statue of Liberty?

"Peter insisted we had to shoot that scene under the Statue of Liberty. The producers resisted because of the expense of the trip. They were ready to shoot it there in England. So Peter, in a fit of pique and rage, said "Well, I'll pay for it!" and so they said "No, we'll pay for it." We were going to fly first class to New York and shoot it the scene. Then Gail [Gerber, Southern's companion since the mid-sixties] of all people, noticed this ad saying the QE2 was making its maiden voyage. She said wouldn't it be fun to go on the QE2 instead of flying? Peter thought that was a great idea. He assumed that it wouldn't be any more expensive than flying first class, but it turned out to be much, much more expensive. Flying was like $2500 a person, but going in a stateroom on the QE2 was $10,000 a person. because there were all these great staterooms on the QE2. The dining room was beyond first class. Like really fantastic. Instead of eating in the ordinary first class place, they had this special dining room. It was called The Empire Room. It was a small dining room with about six tables in it. That was another $2,000 right there. Like really fantastic. But the producers were committed to it. "Before we left, I'd introduced Peter to this Arabic pusher, who had given Peter some hash oil. Peter put drops of it with an eye dropper on tobacco and smoked the tobacco or if he had cannabis, he would drop the oil on that and smoke it. It was just dynamite. Like opium. Peter became absolutely enthralled. He couldn't get enough of it. It was very strong stuff. So we all went on this fantastic five-day crossing. The whole trip was spent in a kind of dream state."

So there was you, Peter, Gail and Ringo?

"Yeah, Ringo, his entourage, his wife, and some of the kids. We never saw the kids. They were usually with the nanny. There was also Dennis O'Dell, the producer, and his wife."

That trip must have cost, as Guy Grand would say, "a pretty penny."

"Yeah, I saw the figures on it once, the crossing cost about twice as much as the shot. They didn't use the shot of the Statue of Liberty in the end."

Quote from: Egyptian Feast on April 15, 2020, 10:39:41 PM
As Ignatius_S says, the book is much better, but the film has it's moments (and a lovely theme tune)....

It certainly does - and for me, rather a lot more moments than accepted opinion would suggest. Although it is a messy film, it didn't deserve its reputation similar to more than a fair few notorious flops that I've seen. However, whereas some serious films get a revised, favourable critical opinion (and in mine, one that swings the other way too much) I think it tends to be harder for comedic films to receive a same - and that's a shame for The Magic Christian.

There are some comedy films, like ...Rimmer and Everyone Home Should Have One, that I hoped that were better than their reputations - not massively, I like to try to remain optimistic. However, they had their moments (and sometimes quite brilliant ones) and I would offer a qualified recommendation. But with The Magic Christian, I didn't have the same sense of disappointment and don't think my recommendation would comes with qualifications.

Quote from: Egyptian Feast on April 15, 2020, 10:39:41 PM...Am I right in thinking there were plans at one point to make a movie of Southern's Blue Movie? That would have surely been a fascinating disaster.

Yes, there was - due to building work (great timing) I can't access all my books (a couple of my Southern ones have info), but here's a bit of an interview (I love the casting):

QuoteYou and Kubrick also shared the rights to Blue Movie. When you decided to write the novel, you dedicated it to him.

"He had in a way given me the idea for Blue Movie. One night, around the time of Strangelove, somebody brought a hard core porn film to Stanley's house to show. They put it on. Very soon into the screening, Stanley got up and left the room. We watched a little more of it and stopped the film. Later Kubrick said, "it would be great if someone made a movie like that under studio conditions." I thought Kubrick would be the ideal person to direct such a movie. When I came back to the States, I started writing a novel based on this concept and would send him pieces of the book from time to time. I still have a great telegram from him saying "You have written the definitive blow job!" in the scene with the Jeanne Moreau type, Arabella."

Was he ever interested in directing Blue Movie?

"No, when he first mentioned it, I assumed that he would be interested in directing it. But it turned out that he has a very ultra-conservative attitude to most things sexual. Around 1974-75, John Calley, who was then president of Warner Brothers, decided to make a film of Blue Movie. A number of other people wanted to do it, but always with the idea of compromising the work by having simulated sex. Calley, however, was convinced as was I, that the first production of a full- on-erection-and-penetration movie using big name stars, a talented director and made under studio conditions would be a blockbuster of Gone With The Wind proportions. "Calley was living with Julie Andrews at the time, and he and Mike Nichols, who had been signed to direct, were able to persuade her (for love, art and a lot of money) to play Angela Sterling, the heroine of the story. A 14 million dollar budget, quite adequate for the time, had been secured and everything was ready. Ringo Starr had held an option on the book, but was quite ready to step aside now that there was an actual production ready to roll. He didn't want any participation. He just wanted to see the book made into a movie. Enter the villain of the piece: Ringo's lawyer (who shall remain nameless) in absolute hysteria, ranting about how he (the lawyer) was "going to look like a schmuck if the picture gets made and we don't have a piece of it." John Calley and I were prepared to give him a piece, but it turned out that Mike Nichols wanted to retain all points so he could use them to make deals with actors. That proved to be a deal breaking stipulation."

Had you written an actual shooting script for Blue Movie?

"Well, as soon as I became convinced that the film was for real, I started immediately without even getting into a contract. I eventually completed a script, but the deals didn't go through. We were as close to a movie ever being made as I ever experienced or had ever heard of. There didn't seem to be any possible deal breaking element. Why it fell apart, it was just a total freak thing."

buzby

Quote from: Ignatius_S on April 20, 2020, 10:16:41 PM
Quote from: Terry Southern
"Calley was living with Julie Andrews at the time, and he and Mike Nichols, who had been signed to direct, were able to persuade her (for love, art and a lot of money) to play Angela Sterling, the heroine of the story.
Andrews would of course later go on to star in S.O.B in 1981 (directed by her husband Blake Edwards), where a film producer persuades a major film studio and his wife, an Oscar-winning movie star with a squeaky-clean image (played by Andrews) to allow him to revise his flop film into a soft-core pornographic musical in which she has to appear topless.

Although it's largely based on Edwards' experience of making Darling Lili, I wonder if the behind-the-scenes wrangling on Blue Movie had some input too?

Blumf

Is S.O.B. worth a punt? Always been curious, but got the feeling that the idea would be more interesting that the actual film.

buzby

Quote from: Blumf on April 21, 2020, 11:49:34 AM
Is S.O.B. worth a punt? Always been curious, but got the feeling that the idea would be more interesting that the actual film.
It's a looong time since I last saw it, but from what I remember it was a a very sarcastic and vitriolic take on Hollywood and the machinations of the studio system, which was all the more ironic as it was distributed by Paramount, the studio that had stuck their oar in on Edwards during the making of Darling Lili.

Egyptian Feast

I haven't seen it for years either, but I quite like S.O.B. It's definitely worth watching (and not just for the obvious 'reasons'). Worth it for the drunken antics of Holden (whose last film it was), Hagman and co. I seem to recall one of them performing every form of excretion throughout the runtime, but I can't remember who.

That was some fascinating info about Blue Movie, cheers for that Ignatius_S and buzby. Proper hat-fucking territory. Imagine if Kubrick had done it! Nichols was a good choice though. It may have still been a disaster, but no doubt a fascinating one.

buzby

Quote from: Egyptian Feast on April 21, 2020, 01:52:43 PM
That was some fascinating info about Blue Movie, cheers for that Ignatius_S and buzby. Proper hat-fucking territory. Imagine if Kubrick had done it! Nichols was a good choice though. It may have still been a disaster, but no doubt a fascinating one.
More recently, Steven Soderbergh (in association with Michael Winterbottom) and Neil LaBute have been linked to Blue Movie, and Michael Dowse had an adaption 'in production' with Vertigo Films around 2007/8 (his next project after It's All Gone Pete Tong) that apparently went nowhere.

Replies From View

The scene with the giant tank of excrement gives me the horrors.

Replies From View

merry christmas merry christmas merry christmas merry christmas merry christmas magic christian magic christian MAGIC CHRISTIAN


just a plug for the film ken, try to keep it on

Egyptian Feast

Quote from: buzby on April 21, 2020, 02:22:59 PM
More recently, Steven Soderbergh (in association with Michael Winterbottom) and Neil LaBute have been linked to Blue Movie, and Michael Dowse had an adaption 'in production' with Vertigo Films around 2007/8 (his next project after It's All Gone Pete Tong) that apparently went nowhere.

Interesting! I wouldn't mind seeing a Soderbergh/Winterbottom adaptation, but would stay far away if LaBute was attached. I'm very doubtful an adaptation would've worked around then, or indeed now. Blue Movie is very much a product of its time and I reckon the sell-by date for such a movie would've passed by the end of the 1970s.

Ignatius_S

Quote from: buzby on April 21, 2020, 11:29:33 AM

Andrews would of course later go on to star in S.O.B in 1981 (directed by her husband Blake Edwards), where a film producer persuades a major film studio and his wife, an Oscar-winning movie star with a squeaky-clean image (played by Andrews) to allow him to revise his flop film into a soft-core pornographic musical in which she has to appear topless.

Although it's largely based on Edwards' experience of making Darling Lili, I wonder if the behind-the-scenes wrangling on Blue Movie had some input too?

Good point about S.O.B. -  when I've read about about the connection between the two, the writer invariably inferred that BM was an influence. Personally, I feel it must have been to some extent but would be fascinated to know how much.

Bit of a tangent, but I'm a fan of American old-time radio and was interested to learn that Edwards started off in radio, when I heard his name in writing credits. Pretty sure, his first gig was creating the show Richard Diamond, Private Investigator for Dick Powell ('the romantic tough guy') - not bad for a newcomer - and think he directed too. The show very much stuck to the same formula, but would say it was a pretty strong one, albeit one I don't really enjoy - he would sing a bloody song each week. Interestingly, Edwards did incorporate humour into the show, but it doesn't work for for me - in particular he would wind up a dull-witted sergeant every episode. The copper doesn't appear to have done anything to Diamond and throughout the series, appears a decent officer but sounds like he is extremely punchdrunk - and for me, it sounds like Diamond is verbally abusing someone with learning difficulties, which I suspect wasn't what Edwards had in mind.

Quote from: Blumf on April 21, 2020, 11:49:34 AM
Is S.O.B. worth a punt? Always been curious, but got the feeling that the idea would be more interesting that the actual film.

Further to what's been said, I would definitely say it's worth a watch. Very savage satire with a great cast and really good performances - Robert Preston is another I would mention.

My impression is that opinion has shifted more favourably towards it, as well.

Quote from: Egyptian Feast on April 21, 2020, 01:52:43 PM...That was some fascinating info about Blue Movie, cheers for that Ignatius_S and buzby. Proper hat-fucking territory. Imagine if Kubrick had done it! Nichols was a good choice though. It may have still been a disaster, but no doubt a fascinating one.

Interesting I've read Southern's son talking about the film, he essentially said that the film was never going to be made and his father wasted too much time and effort in the project, and ultimately it was a big mistake. Was rather put in mind that he feels Sourther Snr. was tilting at windmills.

But it's still fascinating to imagine what might have been...

Quote from: buzby on April 21, 2020, 02:22:59 PM
More recently, Steven Soderbergh (in association with Michael Winterbottom) and Neil LaBute have been linked to Blue Movie, and Michael Dowse had an adaption 'in production' with Vertigo Films around 2007/8 (his next project after It's All Gone Pete Tong) that apparently went nowhere.

Wasn't aware about Dowse - that's interesting.

Quote from: Egyptian Feast on April 21, 2020, 03:20:27 PM
Interesting! I wouldn't mind seeing a Soderbergh/Winterbottom adaptation, but would stay far away if LaBute was attached. I'm very doubtful an adaptation would've worked around then, or indeed now. Blue Movie is very much a product of its time and I reckon the sell-by date for such a movie would've passed by the end of the 1970s.

Yeah, I share those doubts. Although the Soderbergh/Winterbottom team is intriguing (especially as the former is such a massive fan), I feel films like 9 Songs have a Blue Movie film pretty much redundant.

As you say, BM was a product of its time and that time (e.g. porn being in vogue) gave it relevance.