The Magus (1968)

 

Picture: C+     Sound: C+     Extras: C     Film: C+

 

 

Guy Green began as a cinematographer landing no less than Alfred Hitchcock’s classic masterwork Spellbound (1945) as his first feature work.  A very talented cameraman, he is one of those distinct artists who decided to try his hand at directing.  His 1968 film The Magus is about as equally surreal as such moments in the Hitchcock classic, even if it is not totally successful.

 

Based on the existential book by John Fowles, who wrote the screenplay, in which a schoolteacher (Michael Caine) visits Greece only to find he is replacing a man who killed himself.  Sounds like Spellbound already.  He then meets a mysterious figure (Anthony Quinn) and his girlfriend (a very young Candice Bergen) who might know something about the “suicide” and much more.  He is a magician and things are about to get weirder and weirder.  Anna Karina and John Glover also star.

 

Though this makes for an interesting film that challenges the concept of reality to some extent, it cannot pull it off and retain a readerly narrative structure, so it comes up short versus its European counterparts.  The film cannot even pull off the usual British absurdity that later films like John Boorman’s Zardoz managed.  It is ambitious, worth a look, will remind one of the original Wicker Man and actually makes me want to read the book to see why it is so popular and what did not make the translation.

 

The anamorphically enhanced 2.35 X 1 image was shot by Billy Williams, B.S.C., who had done some great work with Caine and director Ken Russell before on Caine’s last Harry Palmer film Billion Dollar Brain.  He went on to lens Women In Love, Sunday Bloody Sunday, cult classic The Manhattan Project and Peter Yates’ underrated Cher/Dennis Quaid thriller Suspect.  Definition is an issue, though this looks good the way it was shot for the big screen in real anamorphic Panavision.  Color is consistent, if a bit muted.

 

The sound is here in Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo and Mono mixes, with the difference being negligible.  Dialogue and sound effects are good for their age and the music by the great John Dankworth also fits well.  Dankworth’s fine work includes the first theme for the TV classic The Avengers, Joseph Losey films including The Servant, Sammy Davis Jr./Peter Lawford comedy Salt & Pepper and recent British gangster film Gangster No. 1.

 

Extras include the trailer for this and a few other Fox/Caine DVDs and a nice featurette (about 25 minutes) on author Fowles.  That makes it a little better than a basic disc for an ambitious film that remains interesting, even when it does not always succeed.

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo