The Magic Christian (1970)

Waste of time

Am i the only one who thinks........Average?

This is a tender, generous movie that likes its characters and presents them as real people, full of flaws and strengths.

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

A really pleasant surprise this. I can't even remember if I saw it theatrically, I certainly hadn't seen it since although I remember the earlier Candy very well. Peter sellers is understated and brilliant throughout and he seems very protective of Ringo who does well, certainly better than I remember he was in Candy. Loads of great turns here and the director holds the film together well. It is episodic with some scenes better than others but it keeps moving and there is always going to be something of interest the next minute anyway. Two standout scenes for me, an hilarious scene with Sellers and Starr with Spike Milligan as a traffic warden and the sensational Mad About The Boy rendition aboard ship. The song is sung for Roman Polanski, who thinks his luck is in but the 'lady' singing is Yul Brynner in drag, although, to top it all, is really the voice of Peter Sellers. There is also a cracking scene with Raquel Welch with whip and bevy of half naked galley slaves, Laurence Harvey as a stripping Hamlet (at Stratford East theatre) and Christopher Lee doing what he does best. On top of all this there is much location shooting and we get excellent river views of London, street scenes of Putney, the National Theatre on the South Bank seeming near completion and much, much more - wonderful.

Unusual movie full of British stars which makes it all the more watchable, you name them they are in it! Of particular interest is a un-credited Jimmy Clitheroe later in life but none the less in it along with Christopher Lee, Fred Emney and many more.The film is a tale of how people can be bought with some interesting performances and perhaps something of a experimental film in many ways.Ringo is his typical self and Peter Sellers pretty much steals the screen most of the time drawing us into his performance.The film was based on the original novel by Terry Southern and I just about remember the film coming out back then with Ringo chatting about the public thinking he was 'a mop-top' which struck me as funny back then.Much location filming for this movie which also included Chobham Common amongst other locations.This is now on Blu-Ray and is a superb scan from a good 35mm film print and worth having a look at just to see the host of great old star names.

Although this comedy movie, starring late comedian Peter Sellers and Beatles drummer Ringo Starr, was first released over a decade and a half before I was born, I don't think I ever heard of it until 2007. I can't remember a time in my life when I wasn't at all familiar with The Beatles, so I knew very well who Ringo was by then. For a long time, I had also known "Come and Get It", a song written by Paul McCartney (another Beatle at the time) and performed by Badfinger, but didn't know it was the theme song for a film. In 2007, I started watching "The Magic Christian", but only got as far as the Hamlet scene, and then stopped. About 2 ½ years later, I've finally managed to sit through the whole film, and after doing so, I have to say it's not bad.Sir Guy Grand (Sellers) is an obscenely rich businessman in England who has no heir. He finds a homeless young man (Starr) while walking outside one day and adopts him as his son and heir to his wealth, so this man becomes Youngman Grand. By joining the family, Youngman gets two new aunts, Dame Agnes and Hon. Esther Grand. The billionaire and his newly adopted son soon begin to play practical jokes, and Guy loves to use large sums of money as a bribe to get people to satisfy his desires! The two of them appear in various public places/events, such as a restaurant, an art gallery, and a boat race, to take advantage of their wealth and the greed of the people they meet. Eventually, it is announced that a cruise ship called the Magic Christian will be going on its maiden voyage, across the Atlantic Ocean to New York. Guy and Youngman buy tickets for this voyage, and so much lunacy ensues!When I first attempted to watch this, I remember finding the way Youngman (before Sir Guy Grand finds him) is woken up from his sleep on the grass in a sleeping bag funny, but after a while, it didn't seem like anything that funny would follow. I guess that was what made me stop watching. However, when I finally watched the whole movie, I discovered so many funny gags I had never seen before! I cannot forget such highlights as the hot dog vendor near the train, the parking ticket scene, what Guy does to a certain painting at the art gallery, the auction scene, a number of scenes on the voyage, etc. Now, it does sometimes get TOO silly and strange. I also sometimes found it hard to follow, and I'm sure there were jokes I didn't get, but I still laughed so many times, and think I was often smiling when I wasn't laughing. Sellers puts on a good comedic performance, and even though Starr may be better known as a musician/singer than an actor, his performance is also impressive. There are good cameo appearances from two talented Monty Python comedians, John Cleese and the late Graham Chapman, who also helped write the screenplay, as Sellers did as well.I could see how dated this film is while watching it. Yes, it is very 60's, and I can understand why it has often been criticized for being too silly and over-the-top and it doesn't exactly have wide appeal today. It apparently didn't even do that well when it was originally released. Still, others can say what they want about it, but I still think it's a reasonably (sometimes very) funny commentary on human greed. I can't just recommend it for anyone, since it could easily bore many people, probably more so now, over forty years after it was made, than when it came into theatres in 1969. It's certainly not kid-friendly, with its violence and sexuality, but for those who are old enough to watch it and are into silliness and lunacy in comedy, "The Magic Christian" might be worth a checking out. I wouldn't expect an amazing movie, you might even end up hating it, but I guess I'm not the ONLY one still praising it today.

One day the fabulously wealthy Sir Guy Grand who is Peter Sellers with a much larger nose finds a young orphan kid in a park. On the spur of the moment he adopts young Ringo Starr, probably because Ringo has a well known honker in real life and Sellers sees something of himself in Ringo.The idea is that Sellers has to have someone not just to leave his money to, but someone to impart his accumulated wisdom of the years which is boiled up into one single thought; that EVERYBODY has his price. The rest of the film is a Monty Pythonesque group of skits in which Sellers tries to prove just that to Starr. They range from Laurence Harvey doing a striptease while doing Hamlet's soliloquy to a beat cop eating a parking ticket for 500 pounds. The title The Magic Christian refers to a Titanic like cruise ship that only caters to the upper crust. Sellers and Starr integrate that ship's maiden voyage in a most interesting fashion.That the film is like Monty Python is no accident with Graham Chapman and John Cleese doing the writing. Ringo's former Beatle companero, Paul McCartney wrote The Magic Christian theme, Come and Get It which sums up the philosophy of the film.After almost 40 years, The Magic Christian is acidly funny, but a still unsettling.