Le magicien

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

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.

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.

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.

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.