Magic Christian

Terry Southern's novel, "The Magic Christian" is very different from the film. However the film, which was written by Southern, among other, still maintains the spirit of the novel.

The film is simply a series of vigniettes centering around Sir Guy Grand (Peter Sellers), and his adopted son, Youngman (Ringo Starr), who goes about "making things hot for people," by using his vast wealth to perpetrate elaborate practical jokes largely aimed at seeing how many of their principles people will give up for money.

The movie is very silly, fragmented, and horribly dated. > Now that you have heard the case against, I have to say that this is one of my favorite movies of all time. The movie destroys or humiliates all social icons, from the police, to "the old school," to the snobbish upper class, to the art world. Its great to see, and once you make up your mind that the movie is just a series of sketches, its funny, and immensely satisfying, albeit somewhat vicious.

Look for cameos by Yul Brynner (in drag), Spike Milligan (Sellers' partner in "The Goon Show"), John Lennon and Yoko Ono, among many others.

Other notes: The novel, "The Magic Christian" was banned for a time, because it was viewed as obscene. Peter Sellers loved this book, and after he read it, he sent copies of it to all of his friends. It might say something about his tragic and depressed personality, that he found this book, with its many vicious stabs against society, so appealing.

Peter Sellers stars as Sir Guy Grand, a fabulously wealthy eccentric who gets to do anything and everything he wants to by liberally greasing the palms of those less fortunate (and wealthy) than himself. Lacking an heir, he adopts a homeless derelict (Ringo Starr) who becomes Youngman Grand and joins him in a series of wild and wacky misadventures. In his apparently never ending quest to prove that everyone has their price, Sir Guy and his newly adopted heir are joined by a host of other notables in cameo roles including Richard Attenborough, John Cleese, Laurence Harvey, Christopher Lee, Roman Polanski, Yul Brynner and Raquel Welch. The movie is based on a book by Terry Southern (who wrote the screenplay for another Peter Sellers classic - "Dr. Strangelove") with Monty Python alumni Graham Chapman and John Cleese lending a hand in the screenplay. This is a movie that has everything: great writers, great actors, well-known comtemporary celebrities and a rapid-fire barrage of parodies and spoofs of almost everything we hold dear, including greed, gluttony, racism and incompetency. If this movie does not make you laugh out loud (frequently) you should consider getting treatment for a severe case of humor deficiency.

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.

Peter Sellers - a Grand performance! Him playing the harp, and with the hot dog-vendor... just to mention 2 scenes. One of the nuttiest and anti - establishment films I ever saw. (I know there should be an adjective instead of "establishment" but the guidelines do not accept it.) Observe the audience in the auditorium of the "Hamlet" theater. Ringo also makes fun of himself - the nose. It amazed me that Paul McCartney provided a song for it. Also I enjoyed the commentary by John Cleese. It must have been a fizzer when first launched in Britain. Does anybody know how the film was accepted by a German audience (see the arrest-scene of the businessman in the train)? I can recommend this movie to everybody!

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.