The Magician (I) (1926) User Reviews

Rex Ingram, with his career about to run down but unaware of his fate makes the model for a generation of horror films.

[max von meyerling · 7/10 · 11 May 2005]

Its all here in embryo: the paradigm for Frankenstein. The mad scientist, trying to create life in his laboratory located in a forbidden tower on the top of a rocky mountain, while thunder and lightning terrify the superstitious villagers. Supposedly adapted from a W. Somerset Maugham novel, the possibility exists that it was Maugham (a qualified physician) who, still very much on the make for an overwhelming success in his third book, might have cribbed more than a little bit from Mary Shelly. However, instead of the Romantic Prometheus, driven mad by hubris and symbolic of mankind's desire to harness newfangled science to dominate and conquer nature, despite the warnings of terrible consequences, all taking place on the edge of the Industrial revolution, we have the elements shaped into a Victorian melodrama of the villain-continued-to-pursue-her variety complete with virgin's blood and a heroine tied in artful knots, and a villain motivated by nothing more than criminal insanity.

On the other hand the artful visual qualities of the storytelling is something that has been lost in today's film vocabulary. A zippy 80 minutes or so, today the coarse need for thrills from this type of film would have necessitated a number anatomically gruesome murders before the final heroine jeopardy and heroic rescue. Here a little horror goes a very long way (all the way to the French Riviera, in fact). THE MAGICIAN is everything that made the silent film, at the same time, so great and so very silly. By the way, shots of Paris, virtually traffic free are a revelation, as are shots of a cobblestone village high up in the mountains (the Alps Maritimes) behind the Riviera. And yes, that's the same Paul Wegener who directed and starred in two versions of The Golom as well as playing Svengali in a 1927 version of the Du Maurier story.

Interesting thriller

[reptilicus · 7/10 · 3 July 2006]

Rex Ingram is probably best remembered for directing Rudolph Valentino's breakthrough film THE FOUIR HORSEMEN OF THE APOCALYPSE (1921) but he ventured into the fledgling terror genre with this thriller starring Paul (The Golem) Wegener.

Wegener's character, Dr. Oliver Haddo, is allegedly based on the real life character Alastair Crowley. When we first meet him he is in attendance as the famous Dr. Burdon (Ivan Petrovich) saves the life of lovely Margaret Dauncey (Alice Terry, the real life Mrs. Ingram) with an operation on her spine. While recovering, Margaret falls in love with Dr. Burdon and he returns her affections. Dr. Haddo is interested in her too but for far less healthy reasons. Dr. H you see, has been searching for the way to create artificial life in the laboratory (sound familiar?) and a old book on alchemy has informed him that he needs "the heart blood of a maiden" added to certain other chemicals to make this happen.

So determined is Haddo to make this happen that he hypnotises Margaret and marries her while she is under his spell. At his mountain top lab he plans to complete his diabolical experiment. Will Margaret lose her own life so Haddo can create life? Will Dr. Burdon find her in time? Ah . . . that would be telling!

What many of us wonder is, is Haddo a real magician or just a very good hypnotist? In one scene he allows a poisonous snake to bite him but makes the lethal wound vanish with just a wave of his hand. Just a moment later the same snake bites a young woman and she must be rushed to hospital. Now most of us know that a venomous snake expels all its venom at the first bite so the fact that it was the second bite that felled the woman should have been a tipoff that Haddo was not bitten at all. Yes, but remember this is a movie and we have to build up suspense. An amusing scene has Dr. Burdon and Dr. Haddo meeting for the first time in a park. As Haddo walks away Burdon remarks to Margaret "He looks like he stepped out of a melodrama!". As if on cue Haddo glares back, throws his cape over his shoulder and makes a perfect stage exit! It is an innocuous but effective moment and briefly clouds the menace that will soon be facing the lovers.

The sequence most people remember is where Haddo gives Margaret a look at Hell. It is a rugged looking place but rather removed from the horrors of the Italian film L'INFERNO (1909) or even DANTE'S INFERNO (1926). The place is loaded with damned souls but they all dance around carefree while Pan (at least I think it's Pan) plays a tune on his pipes. Another faun (dancer Hubert Stowitts) takes Margaret in his arms and passionately kisses her as the dream ends. So did they really go to Hell or was it all a hypnotic dream? In a key scene soon after this Haddo visits Margaret at her home and we clearly see his lips say the words "your rape" which sends her into the deepest despair. Whether the rape was actual or just implied quickly becomes a moot point because she goes away with him, convinced she can never marry Dr. Burdon now.

Elements of the final reels of THE MAGICIAN figure prominently in the Universal film FRANKENSTEIN (1931). Haddo has a monolithic castle at the top of a mountain, a dwarf assistant do you think his name is Fritz?) and a well equipped lab. I think that not only director James Whale but also the set designer for FRANKENSTEIN had to have sat through this film more than once.

Talkies came along about a year after this film was completed and Wegener, who was uncertain of his ability to speak English, returned to Germany. He was not alone, he was soon joined by Emil Jannings, Conrad Veidt and several other actors who had their doubts about being able to effectively perform in a foreign (to them)language.

So is THE MAGICIAN worth seeing? Yes it is, despite its shortcomings it is a well paced and convincingly performed thriller. Give it a try.

THE MAGICIAN (Rex Ingram, 1926) ***

[Bunuel1976 · 7/10 · 15 April 2006]

Until a few months ago, when Michael Elliott added it to his list of films watched to be exact, I was under the impression that this was a lost title – a view which was certainly true till the late 70s since Carlos Clarens, in his wonderful 1967 "Horror Movies" book, called it "probably the most elusive of lost movies" and even Leslie Halliwell, in the 1977 edition of his famous "Film Guide", gives it as unavailable for reappraisal! Indeed, virtually the only way I had previously known this film was via one intriguing still of the Hades sequence found in the section devoted to director Rex Ingram in the periodical "The Movies" (published in the early 80s)…so, it's great that THE MAGICIAN has eventually seen the light of day (albeit unofficially) and, thankfully, it lives up to its considerable reputation – to my eyes, at least.

Ingram was one of Silent cinema's master visual stylists but is now a forgotten figure best-known for the Rudolph Valentino version of THE FOUR HORSEMAN OF THE APOCALYSE (1921); his retirement from films once Talkies came in suggests that, like D.W. Griffith, he was unable to adapt to the ongoing progress in cinematic technique and, indeed, his films – like Griffith's – have an inherently stilted quality to them which dates his output more than those of contemporary auteurs! Anyway, this was my fourth Ingram movie after the interesting THE CONQUERING POWER (1921), the fine if somewhat underwhelming THE PRISONER OF ZENDA (1922) and the rousing SCARAMOUCHE (1923); unfortunately, my copy of MARE NOSTRUM (1926) – recorded off TCM UK – got erased by accident before I had the opportunity to watch it. Alice Terry, Ingram's wife, appeared in 15 of his films and here plays the distressed virginal heroine – who's the prime ingredient for the experiment concocted by the magician of the title (Paul Wegener). The latter, best-known for his three "Golem" pictures made at the height of the "German Expressionist" movement, makes for an overwhelmingly menacing villain – although I found his being a medical student quite amusing (Wegener was 52 at the time of filming!). By the way, the character of Oliver Haddo was based by novelist W. Somerset Maugham on notorious English Occultist and writer Aleister Crowley! The film, an MGM production but shot in France (where Ingram lived), is ostensibly a variation on the Frankenstein myth with a few Svengali overtones thrown in for good measure; interestingly, Paul Wegener would star in an official version of that one in Germany the following year. Ingram's assistant director was the future iconoclastic English film-maker, Michael Powell, who also appears unbilled in a snake-charming sequence around the middle of the film! As expected, the film is pictorially quite stylish (shot by frequent Rex Ingram, Preston Sturges and Billy Wilder lenser, John F. Seitz), especially in the fantasy sequence set in Hades – which must surely have left an indelible impression on Ingram's production manager here, Harry Lachman, to refer back to it when he came to direct the Spencer Tracy version of DANTE'S INFERNO (1935) – and the finale set in a laboratory on a remote mountaintop, which uncannily prefigures (literally step by step) the similar climax at the end of James Whale's BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN (1935)!; as a matter of fact, Wegener even has a dwarfish assistant a' la Dwight Frye in Whale's FRANKENSTEIN (1931) – so, it's very possible that Whale had seen Ingram's film.

One is all the more grateful, then, that a print of THE MAGICIAN has survived since it helps throw more light on the influences behind the greatest horror film ever made (which also happens to be my all-time favorite film)

Don't miss

[irearly · 14 June 2006]

I read Carlos Clarens "Horror Movies" in '68 and it was one of the bigger influences on my movie tastes (as was seeing my first movie "House on Haunted Hill" in the theater with Emergo when I was five years old) so I'm inclined to recommend this movie for those who would like a fluid distillation of what was best about the silent cinema.

I saw it at the Film Forum in NYC around '92 or '93. Ingram had moved to France and The Magician is notable for its documentary footage of Paris, Monaco and the French countryside. Wegener is a formidably grotesque presence and there is a remarkable set piece at the very beginning when a huge clay sculpture collapses, seeming at first to come to life, sending Alice Terry to the hospital. Oliver Haddo, the magician of the title, lurks in the observation gallery as a life saving operation is performed on her...

This movie really has it all so don't miss it if you get the chance especially if you can see it with live musical accompaniment.

Well-done silent horror movie

[preppy-3 · 7/10 · 22 March 2010]

Beautiful Margaret Dauncey (Alice Terry) is set to marry young handsome Dr. Arthur Burdon (Ivan Petrovich). They meet an evil magician named Oliver Haddo (Paul Wegener) who is trying to create life. He needs the blood of someone whose profile fits Margaret's perfectly...and he'll so ANYTHING to get it.

Hard to see silent. I want to thank TCM for showing it about a week ago. The print was in pretty good shape with tinting and an amusing music score (LOVED when they used "Night on Bald Mountain"). The movie was made with a pretty big budget--the settings are incredible--and has a good script that follows many horror film clichés--but in a good way. Heck, it all ends on a dark and stormy night and in a CASTLE! Also there's a trip to Hell which is a real jaw dropper. The acting varies. Terry was a star of the silent screen and it's easy to see why. She was a beautiful woman AND a good actress. She's just great here. Wegener chews the scenery again and again and AGAIN as the mad magician. He really overdoes it--but it's pretty amusing. Petrovich is given nothing to do as the doctor but him and Terry make a very good-looking couple. Beautifully directed by Rex Ingram too (who was Terry's husband). Well worth seeing--if you can.

Pioneering supernatural silent

[mhesselius · 6/10 · 15 October 2010]

In the 1920s films dealing with supernatural evil were extremely rare. However, director Rex Ingram, obviously influenced by earlier German forays into the supernatural, cast German actor Paul Wegener of DER GOLEM in this adaptation of Somerset Maugham's novel THE MAGICIAN. Wegener's menacing performance as an evil Yogi in LEBENDE BUDDHAS (1925) made him a good choice to play Oliver Haddo, obsessed with creating life from an ancient formula requiring the heart's blood of a maiden, played by Ingram's wife Alice Terry.

John F. Seitz' cinematography is superb, especially in the depiction of the heroine's hallucinatory descent into Hell where she is figuratively ravished by a lustful and athletic satyr. And although Haddo doesn't succeed in creating the grisly, half-complete humans as in the novel, the controversial subject matter was nevertheless strong enough to insure the film's failure at the box-office in 1926.

Interesting comparisons have been made between this film and James Wale's FRANKENSTEIN, but the subject of black magic also invites comparison with later films - THE BLACK CAT (1934), THE NIGHT OF THE DEMON (1957), and THE DEVIL RIDES OUT (1968) - featuring characters who like Oliver Haddo were modeled on real-life occultist Aleister Crowley.

Really good...and a lot like "Svengali" and "Frankenstein" combined.

[planktonrules · 9/10 · 17 March 2016]

This is a very good silent film that still hold up very well today. When the film begins, Margaret (Alice Terry) is terribly injured--so badly she's paralyzed. However, Dr. Burdon (Iván Petrovich) performs surgery on her and she is healed. They soon fall in love and life looks grand. However, Oliver Haddo (Paul Wegener) sees her and instantly is smitten with her. Using his evil magical powers, he's able to pull her to him despite he loving the Doctor. However, he's not taking her because he loves her...nope. He's planning on using her for a human sacrifice in order to act like a Dr. Frankenstein and prove he can raise the dead!! Can Dr. Burdon rescue his love before it's too late?

This is a good film...very tense and exciting. Wegener (the German actor who starred in "The Golem") was excellent as the powerful madman and the film, though melodramatic, avoids going overboard like some films of the era thanks to good direction by Rex Ingram....Terry's real life husband.

An enjoyable horror film

[lyrast · 7/10 · 13 July 2010]

"The Magician" {1926} is directed by Rex Ingram and stars Alice Terry as Margaret, Ivan Pétrovich as Dr Arthur Burdon and Paul Wegener as Oliver Haddo, the villainous practitioner of Black Magic.

If one is willing to make the necessary suspension of disbelief there isn't the slightest doubt but that the film provides loads of entertainment as a horror/thriller combination.

The two leads don't have very much to do in terms of acting. Burdon is the usual faithful hero and Alice Terry's character spends most of her time staring helplessly about in a trance and looking full of Angst. Paul Wegner (who directed "The Golum" (1920)} steals every scene he's in with a wonderfully spectacular over-the-top melodramatic portrayal of the Magician who needs the heart blood of a maiden to create life {hmm . . . I wonder who's supposed to provide that ingredient}.

Another star in the film is the great cliff-top, tower-castle of Hadoo himself, surrounded with bolts of lightning and filled with such items as strange potions which bubble and foam with a satisfactorily smoking violence, strange manuscripts and sinister props. When Hadoo picks up his box of sharp knives, one can't help noticing the nearby cupboard topped with a skull nicely festooned with cobwebs. There's the expected winding staircase to impede the heroic rescue and an open fully fired-up incinerator helps us along to the climax which ends with a suitable cataclysm.

There are a very few points where the film is slightly disjointed--obviously owing to the fact that a few frames have been lost, but one soon forgets them. Generally the print used by TCM is very sharp and beautifully tinted. It's a pleasure to watch it. Robert Israel's score is well chosen, skillfully applied and very atmospheric. Note, for example, the reunion of hero and heroine is underlined by the love theme from Tchaikovsky's Romeo and Juliet.

The story of the film is based on a novel of the same name by Somerset Maugham and it is available for free download on Project Gutenberg. I've not read it yet but I might do so if only to compare the two approaches.

This is a film I would recommend for the entertaining use it makes of the typical stereotypes of the horror genre but above all for Wegener's fabulous performance.

silent chiller was ahead of its time

[mjneu59 · 9/10 · 3 December 2010]

A mad doctor and his hunchbacked assistant labor over their unholy experiments in an abandoned mountaintop castle during a fierce electrical storm. Mary Shelley's 'Frankenstein'? No, it's a W. Somerset Maugham story, filmed by Rex Ingram five years before the Boris Karloff classic, which in many ways it clearly anticipated. The film was one of the earliest horror dramas, and some of the unlikely but sensational plot twists (involving mesmerism, a virgin sacrifice, and a hallucinogenic trip to Hell) outraged polite audiences of its day. Most of the grisly details were artfully implied rather than overtly shown, making the film, in retrospect, superior to much of the broad melodrama surviving the silent age. Natural performances and realistic settings (Paris and Southern France) keep the colorful story from straining the limits of credibility, while the last minute rescue adds a satisfying (and, for the mad doctor, fatal) kick.

The Blood of a Virgin Goes a Long Way

[wes-connors · 6/10 · 15 June 2010]

In Paris, beautiful sculptress Alice Terry (as Margaret Dauncey) is critically wounded when a giant faun she is working on cracks, topples, and crushes her body. Ms. Terry's wealthy uncle summons American surgeon Ivan Petrovich (as Arthur Burdon) to operate on Terry's paralyzed body. The doctor and patient celebrate Terry's full recovery by falling in love. During their courtship, they encounter magician hypnotist Paul Wegener (as Oliver Haddo), an alchemist who witnessed Terry's miraculous surgery. A frightening, rotund man, Mr. Wegener happens to encounter Dr. Petrovich and Terry again and again. Wegener wants to create life, and has decided Terry will supply the "Blood of a Maiden" required in an ancient sorcerer's recipe!

While still a young woman, Terry seems more like a matron than a maiden - guess you just have to assume "The Magician" knows a virgin when he sees one. In W. Somerset Maugham's original novel, the Terry character is a teenaged art student, and the intriguing Gladys Hamer (as Susie Boyd) an older rival; it's an excellent read, and fairly easy to find on line (for free). Most unclear, in the film, is exactly how Wegener's experiment is supposed to work. Playing "Dr. Frankenstein" (and inspiring the 1931 classic's design), Wegener sets up a lab to extract blood, apparently. Highlighted by a hellish hallucination, it's very nicely envisioned by Terry's skillful director husband Rex Ingram; but, it lacks the richness of plot abundantly available in the book.

****** The Magician (10/24/26) Rex Ingram ~ Alice Terry, Paul Wegener, Ivan Petrovich, Firmin Gemier

Spellbounding

[kerrydragon · 8/10 · 15 March 2010]

First time on TCM,so I was curious to see this old "svengali" type film.The name alone was intriguing "The Magician".What I found was a totally intact silent of the best quality.The Villain in the picture plays it to the hilt,in somewhat cartooned expressions,but always creepy and interesting.The backdrop of Paris is of interest as are the colour sequences.The clothing in this film are especially attractive as is the well groomed cast.I was captivated from start to finish,what a treat to see a silent as it should be.The acting was wonderful from all,even though I had never heard of these particular actors before.I am a lover of old horror films and this really fit the bill.Enjoyed the castle,and early special effects.

Magical

[ArtVandelayImporterExporter · 6/10 · 31 December 2021]

This is a good-looking film. High production values. Beautiful location shooting. Excellent cinematography.

The mad scientist is suitably creepy. The male lead handsome and heroic. And the female lead a beautiful damsel in distress.

M favorite scene was the red-tinged descent into fantasy h3ll. If I had seen that when I was a kid I would have been afraid to go to bed for a week.

On the other hand, the plot doesn't really have much motion. OK, mad scientist entices girl away from fiance. It's a little lethargic, to be honest. The climax is right out of a 1990s Hollywood movie. Fistfight, yawn.

Enjoyable to see once, but for the location shooting more than the ''horror" aspects, which I found pedestrian, other than the "h3ll" scene.

Both my thumbs are up for this one

[HallmarkMovieBuff · 15 March 2010]

Practically every element of this film holds up very well here in the twenty-first century, eighty-four years after the movie was made - the writing, the casting, the directing (and art direction), the photography (both indoor and outdoor), the "costumes" and "sets" (really, the fashions and architecture of the era were a captivating delight), and most of the acting. I say "most" because the only thing that seemed dated in this post-feminist era was the woe-is-me attitude of the hapless heroine.

Particularly well-cast in terms of "looking the part" were the two male leads, both protagonist and antagonist. (After all, these were not speaking parts, so look was of high importance.)

Surprisingly enjoyable were some quite subtle, non-intrusive comedic tension-breakers by peripheral characters, including some clever silent movie sight gags.

The main recommendation I can make for seeing this film, however, is the clarity of the photography, both for the close-ups, and for some wonderful outdoor set pieces.

"Oh, Arthur, you're a life saver."

[brogmiller · 7/10 · 24 October 2023]

In his later years Somerset Maugham seemed not to remember much of his novel 'The Magician', written seven years before his breakthrough work 'Of Human Bondage'. He did however recall his painstaking background research into the Black Arts and incurring the wrath of famed occultist Aleister Crowley who believed himself to be the inspiration for the evil Oliver Haddo.

Loosely adapted by Rex Ingram it has here been given the Gothic horror/mad scientist treatment in which Haddo intends extracting the blood of a virgin so as to gain the elixir of life. Although limited as an actor there was no one whose persona was more suited to Ingram's concept than the charismatic Paul Wegener whose very presence exudes menace.

The excellent cast includes Ingram's wife Alice Terry as Haddo's intended victim whilst Iván Petrovich and Firmin Gémier combine to thwart his devilish scheme.

As one would expect from Mr. Ingram the film has grand design and is pictorially impressive. Although the more gruesome elements of Maugham's original have been omitted the ending is far more sensationalist than that of the novel and by all accounts the effective Sabbat sequence was directed by someone else. This has been confirmed by Michael Powell who doubled up as assistant director and as 'man with the balloon' (both uncredited)

Powell was of course to acknowledge the influence of Ingram on his own work whilst David Lean and close friend Erich von Stroheim were also great admirers. His influence on the films of James Whale is there for all to see.

It is such a pity that his rift with Louis B. Mayer caused this imaginative and artistic director to quit Hollywood and to make just one film with sound in Morocco before retiring.

This flick is a film way ahead . . .

[oscaralbert · 6/10 · 27 November 2018]

. . . of its time. THE MAGICIAN features rampant abuse of the differently-abled, as well as generous helpings of misogyny and a Luddite-like know-nothing anti-Science Agenda. The final 15 minutes of THE MAGICIAN is marred by the demeaning of a dwarf. Certain of these scenes resemble the Young Pachyderm Parties on Today's college campuses, in which the "Dwarf Toss" is a major pastime. Stuffing Little People into cramped pieces of furniture may seem "cute" to some twisted minds in these "anything goes" days of immorality with the Red Commie KGB egging on Americans to behave badly, but any self-respecting film studio should have known better than to foment such outrageous attitudes in the more civilized 1920s. The paternalism with which "Margaret's" guardian second-guesses her choice of a mate also sounds like something out of our current GIRL ERASED era. And the glee with which this authoritarian bozo closes out THE MAGICIAN by burning doomed "Oliver's" scientific papers, vandalizing his biological apparatus, and blowing up his entire laboratory definitely parallels this week's trashing of the 1,600-page Global Warming Disaster Alert.

compelling villain

[SnoopyStyle · 8/10 · 17 September 2021]

It's the Latin Quarter in Paris. Sculptor Margaret Dauncey is injured by a falling piece of art. Dr. Arthur Burdon's surgery saves her from paralysis and they fall in love. Oliver Haddo is the magician. He finds the magic formula to create human life in an old book. He steals the page and gives the book to Dr. Porhoet, Margaret's uncle, who is also looking for the formula.

I love the old Paris locations and other exterior shots. It's an interesting little supernatural drama. It's the villain who is the most interesting. He's got good creepiness. It's a relatively simple story. With some more special effects, this could be a modern horror movie.

Great silent horror

[Leofwine_draca · 8/10 · 16 June 2021]

THE MAGICIAN (1926) is a little-known slice of silent horror, lost for many years, but well worth checking out for those of us who enjoy watching the development of the genre. This is an atmospheric gem that seems to have influenced later hits like FRANKENSTEIN and has lots of reasons to watch. We begin with an accident scene which sees a girl crushed by a falling statue; her spine is saved by pioneering surgery, but she subsequently finds herself trapped in a love triangle between the surgeon who saved her and a creepy magician who seems determined to get hold of her blood for his own nefarious purposes! Lots of spooky moments throughout this fast-paced little number including a great and rather explicit dream sequence set in Hell itself. The excellent Paul Wegener, of such classics as THE GOLEM, plays the title character as a mad scientist who undoubtedly inspired similar portrayals in future years.

Influential early horror film

[gbill-74877 · 8/10 · 11 February 2019]

A little bit of a mix between movies that came before and after it, the title character combining the mind control of Dr. Mabuse (1922) with the desire to create life of Dr. Frankenstein (1931), though it's actually based on the 1908 novel by W. Somerset Maugham. There's quite a bit of mood here in the scenes which work, and that's what put it over the top for me, despite plodding along a bit early on, including a snake charmer scene at a carnival that seems like a weak version of Browning. Eventually we get to the evil magician's laboratory, which is set in a cool tower high above a town, and what do you know, he's also got a hunchbacked assistant. He uses mind control on a young woman (Alice Terry) to get her to marry him instead of her fiancée (Iván Petrovich) because he's found an ancient recipe for creating life, and it calls for the blood from the heart of a maiden. It's not exactly clear how that's supposed to work, beyond combining it with other unspecified things kept at 115 degrees, I mean, is life supposed to arise from a soupy mixture? It's not quite as well conceived as Frankenstein trying to animate a corpse, but it's suitably dark, and German actor Paul Wegener is strong in the leading role. In one fantastic scene, the film's best and a little reminiscent of Faust (1926), he casts an illusion for the young woman, one of a mostly naked satyr and various forest creatures dancing around in a mad orgy, leading to one of them biting down on her neck like a vampire. There are also some pretty shots in Paris, Monaco, and Nice. It's not perfect, but it's got some great moments and was clearly influential.

David Jeffers for SIFFblog.com

[rdjeffers · 16 January 2009]

Monday January 12, 7:00pm, Paramount Theater, Seattle

A young artist falls in love with the surgeon who cures her paralysis following a horrible accident, but a mad scientist hypnotizes, then abducts her just as she and the surgeon are about to be married.

Loosely based on Somerset Maugham's 1908 novel, The Magician (1926) stars Alice Terry as beautiful but timid Margaret Dauncey. Oliver Haddo, played with evil intensity by renowned German horror star Paul Wegener, is obsessed with creating human life by use of an ancient, stolen formula and imprisons Margaret in his mountaintop laboratory as part of the sinister plan.

While considered something of a disappointment by director Rex Ingram, The Magician contains both frightening and beautiful imagery with a satisfying if rudimentary plot. Great attention to detail can be seen throughout the film, which includes spectacular location shoots in Paris and the Maritime Alps. Even in mediocrity, Ingram was vastly superior to nearly everyone else.

A Precursor To Frankenstein

[springfieldrental · 8/10 · 10 March 2022]

In retrospect, one of MGM Studio's chief executives, Dore Schary, ranked the best silent movie directors in order: D. W. Griffith, Rex Ingram, Cecil B. DeMille and Erich von Stroheim. Ingram was a major influence in director David Lean's outlook on film while future director Michael Powell worked with Ingram when Rex was in France producing movies for MGM.

As Ingram's career transitioned to Europe soon after his arrival in 1923, the director of 1921's "The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse" began to focus his subject matter more on the grotesque and spiritual world. His October 1926 "The Magician" is a prime example of the direction Ingram was steering towards. He adapted his script from the 1908 W. Somerset Maugham novel of the same name, which deals with a doctor who claims he can create life as long as he is able to secure the "heart blood of a Maiden." Ingram's wife, Alice Terry, plays the potential victim who's hypnotically drawn to the doctor, Oliver Haddo (Paul Wegener). She ends up finding herself on the surgical table in Haddo's laboratory in his castle high up on a hill.

If this sounds like the makings of a Frankenstein movie, the assumptions are correct. Director James Whale said he was heavily influenced by "The Magician" in its aesthetics, especially in the concluding castle sequences where he copied Ingram for his 1931 movie about the man-made monster.

"The Magician" also garners its spookiness from the actor playing Haddo, Germany's Wegener. His appearance introduced to the American public the actor whose presence in that country's "Golem" series sent shivers down the spines of European theater-goers. This was Wegener's only Hollywood movie. Meanwhile, Alice Terry was Ingram's go-to female lead in this as well as a number of his films. Theirs was a rocky relationship soon after the couple's relocation to Nice, France. Her roles in several movies at the time playing opposite romantic lovers didn't sit well with the jealous Rex. But the couple did stay together for the remainder of Ingram's life.

Chaney to the rescue?

[JohnHowardReid · 8/10 · 26 January 2018]

Getting back to the big stars of silents, it would be hard to go past Lon Chaney. Mockery (1927) presents Lon with a false nose and wig as a dim-witted Russian peasant who is almost persuaded by the popular comedian, Charles Puffy (here repulsively evil in a wholly dramatic role), to join the Russian Revolution.

Oddly, the movie also boasts another well-known comedian-turned-serious-actor in its cast, namely Mack Swain as the grasping Gaidaroff.

Although second-billed, Ricardo Cortez has only a small role to play, which he accomplishes with his usual finesse.

Nonetheless, despite this grand roll-up - Chaney, Puffy, Swain, Cortez - it's actually Barbara Bedford's movie. She is superb! Hard to believe that in less than three years, her star would decline and she would spend the rest of her lengthy career playing scores and scores of walk-ons and bits.

(Available on an excellent Warner Archive DVD).

Great Fun

[Hitchcoc · 8/10 · 17 October 2023]

I adore silent films, especially the ones that have a bit of supernatural vent to them. This is the story of a gifted neurosurgeon, the woman whom he saves from paralysis, and an evil magician. Of course, it is male dominated, as the young woman becomes the object of attention. The evil scientist/magician pores through books using the black arts. It seems he needs the blood of a virgin to create life, so he goes through great pains to get the woman in question. He has the power of hypnosis and is able to grab her before her wedding and put a trance on her. From then on it is about efforts to get to her before her blood is spilled. That sounds simple, but there are some really classic moments. The fair is really fun to see. There is also a long scene where evil spirits are called up from the pits of hell. All in all, I had never seen this. It is well worth the effort.

Ingram And Wegener Perfect The Horror Genre

[boblipton · 10/10 · 16 October 2023]

Alice Terry has the head of the enormous sculpture she is working on come loose and fall on her -- despite her husband and director, Rex Ingram, having studied sculpture at Yale, she has apparently never heard of an armature. Her spine is broken, but American surgeon Ivan Petrovich performs a miraculous surgery that makes her good as new. This attracts to attention of evil Paul Wegener (the character is modeled on Aleister Crowley), who wants her for his task of creating life. He hypnotizes her, steals her away from Petrovich, and uses her to win money in Monte Carlo, before taking her to his remote mountain laboratory.

Although the sexual symbolism in toned way down, Ingram created many of the images that became standard for horror movies in this late silent film. The froglike Wegener is excellent in the sort of role he created. You can spot Michael Powell -- he also served as assistant director -- in a couple of scenes at the fair, where he carries a balloon. He's already losing his hair.

Ingram was regarded as a genius at MGM; the success of FOUR HORSEMEN OF THE APOCALYPSE and SCARAMOUCHE had kept the studio from collapsing before Loew could get his hands on it. He repaid the esteem by fleeing to France with Miss Terry, whom he married, and having his movies labeled as being presented by "Metro-Goldwyn" to annoy Louis B. Mayer. He directed his last movie in 1932, although he always claimed to have some project in the works. He died in 1950, aged 58.

An increasingly compelling story outweighs initial weak pacing

[I_Ailurophile · 8/10 · 5 October 2022]

No matter how many silent films one watches, the differences in how stories are told compared to modern pictures never cease to amaze. Some titles go about their narrative and plot development very fluidly and naturally, but then there are instances in which the laying out of story beats are Just So, almost skipping from A to C (or D). Take for example the sudden blossoming of romance; the unexplained method by which characters come upon necessary information; the bizarrely specific requirements of what an enterprising and unscrupulous individual is attempting to achieve. More curious still is when a picture is so lackadaisical about exposition and early scene writing that the core plot seems weirdly sidelined. All this is true of Rex Ingram's 'The magician,' as it lays out certain foundations for the plot with a decided brusqueness while also taking its good time to especially go anywhere. Once the tale does pick up it's duly satisfying, and enticing - but I can understand the difficulty other viewers may have with the feature, above all those who don't ordinarily engage with the silent era.

The narrative that emerges is one of desire, ambition, and exploration of the bounds of the natural world as they collide with the unnatural. By the standards of cinema at any point in subsequent years the result is less than gripping or thrilling, yet it's nonetheless engrossing, and tense and disquieting in accordance with the storytelling sensibilities of the 1920s. 'The magician' also gets more mileage out of the root premise than I'd have assumed, doing so in no small part by drawing out the machinations of the titular character rather than zeroing in on his greatest aspirations. For any shortcomings in how it first presents, ultimately the story is compelling; one recognizes a sense of horror that gradually shifts from more esoteric and thematic to actual - impactful all the while - and definite tropes that have been part of the genre practically since its inception.

If the screenplay has its moments of weakness, in other regards 'The magician' is solid without a doubt. The filming locations are splendid, as are the production design and art direction. The effects employed here, relatively modest, are excellent all the same, as is the keen editing that helps to build atmosphere and which also effectively takes the place of where special effects might be employed in more modern titles. Ingram and his collaborating directors illustrate a rapt eye for shot composition, including fine use of lighting; shots and scenes are orchestrated very well generally, with the climax surely being the most captivating part of all. And while star Paul Wegener might strangely be the least impressive of anyone here, broadly speaking the cast is terrific in bringing their characters to life, and the feature as a whole.

What we have when all is said and done is a classic that is unfortunately a bit slow at the outset, but as the length advances it shows its worth. There are, after all, airs of tension, suspense, and atmosphere, and one can recognize a through line from still earlier horror in film, to this, to genre flicks of the 30s and beyond. And regardless of labels, one way or another, at length 'The magician' comes off with strength and intelligence that it just takes some time to incubate. Recommended specifically for fans of the silent era, this still holds up fairly well almost 100 years later, and is worth checking out for those who appreciate older films.