ike another reviewer, I first became familiar with Rex Ingram’s THE MAGICIAN through Carlos Clarens’ book AN ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF THE HORROR FILM back in the late 1960s. A few years later it was one of the films/stories selected by Peter Haining in his fascinating 1971 collection THE GHOULS which featured the source material that some classic horror films were based on. Both publications indicated that THE MAGICIAN was a lost film or at best incomplete. Unlike a number of other silent films that I successfully tracked down after the VHS/DVD explosion of the late 1980s and early 90s, I totally forgot about THE MAGICIAN assuming that it was a lost cause. Then in 2010 this Warner Archive Edition appeared out of nowhere and I finally got to see it after some 40 odd years in a good print and with a proper soundtrack . Silent film lovers owe a huge debt to Turner Classic Movies. Not only do they give a large audience a chance to experience silent movies through their SILENT SUNDAY NIGHTS program but they have made these films available to purchase on DVD-R.
It’s fascinating to see how many horror films borrowed their backgrounds from this film most notably, as has been mentioned before, James Whale’s original FRANKENSTEIN. This gives the viewer, especially in the film’s final scenes, a strong sense of deja vu since it looks so familiar but then THE MAGICIAN got there first. Director Rex Ingram was a major visual stylist of the silent era. He moved to France to get away from Hollywood control (THE MAGICIAN was shot in France and on location) and especially Louis B. Mayer whom he despised (notice that Mayer’s name is pointedly missing from the title credits). When sound arrived, Ingram’s career waned. He didin’t care much for sound and Mayer reportedly worked behind the scenes to keep his movies from being distributed. I find it interesting that Ingram (an Irishman) shooting in France for an American company not known for its horror films should come up with such a German looking picture as THE MAGICIAN. I suspect that star Paul Wegener, famous for playing THE GOLEM and a director as well, had a hand in the proceedings.
THE MAGICIAN was inspired by W. Somerset Maugham’s 1908 novel which was inspired by the English occult practitioner, Aleister Crowley. The film is set in contemporary 1926. When sculptor Alice Terry (director Ingram’s wife and a popular star of the silent era) is injured by a falling statue, she is saved by the “miracle” surgery of an American (!) doctor. Attending the surgery is magician Oliver Haddo (Wegener) who is obsessed with a medieval formula for creating life. It requires the “heart blood of a maiden” and guess who he has in mind. After hypnotizing Terry and transforming her statue of a faun into a vision of Hell (one of the film’s great set-pieces), he whisks her away to his tower/laboratory to conduct his experiments with the doctor in hot pursuit. If this sounds like high melodrama, it is but intentionally so. A title card even refers to Wegener as a character out of a melodrama. It’s all style over substance and a must for fans of classic, old school horror. WARNING: Beware of public domain prints like the one currently on You Tube. It has an unrelated soundtrack and no color tints.
The Capsule Critic 