The Magic Christian (1969) – DVD

*½/**** Image A- Sound A-
starring Peter Sellers, Ringo Starr, Isabel Jeans, Caroline Blakiston
screenplay by Terry Southern & Joseph McGrath, based on Southern's novel
directed by Joseph McGrath

by Travis Mackenzie Hoover The worst thing about The Magic Christian is that it thinks it's good for you. Essentially a series of blackout sketches in which people are induced by cash to do embarrassing and/or unprincipled things, it comes on like it's revealing some hitherto concealed facet of "straight" society, the better to seem irreverent and "with-it" in that vaguely-defined Sixties kind of way. But a movie where a rich guy with a briefcase full of money delights in its power to destroy other people's self-image is more than a little cynical, and sure enough, The Magic Christian seems to like its self-appointed judge/jury/executioner roles too much for comfort. The more it tries to convince you that it's everyone else who's rotten and corrupt, the more the film reveals its own misanthropy–and its mean-spirited nature thwarts whatever meagre stabs at merriment it attempts.

Filthy-rich Guy Grand (Peter Sellers) is a man on a mission. After arbitrarily adopting homeless waif Youngman (Ringo Starr), he must show his new heir the Grand way of life–that is, bribing people into doing things they wouldn't normally do. These acts range from the innocuous (a parking cop eats the ticket he's written) to the naughty (Laurence Harvey strips while performing Hamlet) to the "shocking" (two boxers get it on during a match), and they reveal the film's big brainwave: people, apparently, can be bought. No, really. When our heroes aren't busy debasing people, they're appalling easily-appalled rich people by ruining their dinners and hunting game with artillery (you have to be there), and it doesn't take long to get the point here, either: rich people are not poor, and exist to be used as punching bags by the more happening members of the cast.

The point is not that rich people are blameless victims or that people don't have prices–it's the smug uses to which the film puts that information that rankles. Instead of being a breezily vulgar romp across the landscape, the film cops an attitude that it is, in fact, doing the world a favour by clobbering the same targets (rich people, pretentious people, the conspicuously virtuous) that comedians have attacked throughout the ages. So instead of having a high good time, The Magic Christian has to pretend that it's really part of the '60s counterculture, and to that end includes bloody documentary footage of Vietnam atrocities in case we miss that tenuous connection. In so doing, it shows itself to be nothing more than parasitic on a passing trend, and just as venal and corrupt as the sitting ducks it attempts to shoot.

Because the cynicism runs so deep, nothing in the film feels funny. The big surrealist moments of pre-Python absurdity just pummel you with their bombast, and the sloppy direction by Joseph McGrath destroys any hope for comic timing–the hope being that if a big outrage occurs, you'll laugh and congratulate the filmmakers for their effort. As a result, some talented people go to waste: not only does Peter Sellers's usual razor-sharp performance come to naught, but 2001 DP Geoffrey Unsworth is squandered on a mise-en-scène so haphazard as to defeat his capabilities. Sure, there are vampires, musclemen, gay stereotypes and Raquel Welch, but when there's no game plan beyond random irreverence, it just becomes a noisy bore, made all the more unpleasant by people jumping into vats of blood and manure. Really.

THE DVD
The Magic Christian is presented on a Republic/Artisan DVD in 1.33:1 fullscreen in what appears to be an open-matte transfer. The image is crisp and well-defined and the colours are bright without seeming overly enhanced. The artificially-concocted Dolby Surround mix is even better, especially during the numerous incursions of Paul McCartney's song "Come and Get It"–which is unfortunately repeated more times than one would ever listen to it on one's own. There are no extras.

101 minutes; NR; 1.33:1; English Dolby Surround; CC; DVD-5; Region One; Artisan